Parole Board Chair Josh Wall was confirmed to be a judge in Massachusetts yesterday. It was a 5-3 vote, certainly not an overwhelming sign of approval by the Governor’s Council, and certainly, for many of us—community activists, lawyers, families of parolees, incarcerated men and women, and educators— disappointing (see my columns below). Here are some of the things I heard councilors say, many of which were powerful and many, infuriating, and some, just plain wrong, as they told why they were or were not voting for Josh Wall. Included are also some details not reported in the press.

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It was interesting that Governor Patrick was there for this vote, in the antechamber outside his office where votes are held around a round table, crowded with onlookers, and in this case, reporters. In fact he made an entrance, as if this was a big deal. Usually it is the Lieutenant Governor, and Tim Murray, who resigned in 2013, and would have been a tiebreaker in any 4-4 vote. But the Governor does not vote, and who knows if he was showing up just to make sure all went well for his friend? Who knows if the reason he asked Oliver Cipollini to give the opening prayer was so that Cipollini might look good before the assembly after the Boston Herald article from that day? In that article, Howie Carr, intimated that since Cipollini was defeated in his reelection as councilor, he would get payback if he voted for Wall; he asked: “Now that the voters have spoken, are you looking for a soft landing in the hackerama?” There was also more about this on Fox news last night.

But it was business as usual, as Cipollini vigorously denied these allegations, exasperated and squirming in his chair—a new one Governor Patrick had just provided for him and fellow councilor Marilyn Devaney. The prayer he gave asked the Council to reflect on public safety and how the council plays its role in such. Hmmmmmm, I thought. That’s a prayer? Then before the usual order of business, there was the pledge of allegiance.

Two other judges before Wall were put forth to be voted on first, and Councilor Bob Jubinville, who had been vigorous in his disapproval of Wall, said ironically both times when it came up to approve the other judges, “I congratulate the Governor on his nominees, I didn’t hear one objection from any source, defense lawyer or prosecutor, about his character, his fairness, or his integrity on these nominees.”

Terrence Kennedy put forth Josh Wall to be judge. Christopher Iannella seconded. Thus everyone knew: two Yeses. The Governor then asked for comments.

The first to speak against him was Jubinville who said that what he heard in three days of hearings from Wall’s handling of all his work had convinced him to vote no. He cited Brady v Maryland as a decision on exculpatory evidence, the Willy Davis issues where Wall went behind the judge’s back to find out the criminal records of the jury leading to a trial in his favor, the patterns of Josh Wall’s behavior as a prosecutor including some attacks of him as racist, and as Parole Board chair, the overwhelming support against him. Someone must have suggested that this was a “conspiracy” because Jubinville said to suggest so was foolishness. He ended by citing the Carr newspaper report and saying that Wall does not have the temperament to be a superior court judge. His vote was No.

Next up was Jennie Caissie who said, “The opposition to this nominee is historic.” She said that it is not just the number of people who showed up but “the magnitude of opposition to this nominee.The spectrum of people who showed up cannot be understated.”  Again she noted the conspiracy theory that someone (Wall? the Governor?) had floated. Her concern included the Woodmans, victims whom she believed when they talked about treatment from Josh Wall. She said she had been contacted by former colleagues from the Suffolk District Attorney’s office, and one of them even used the word “God complex” in talking about Wall.

“I voted for Josh Wall twice,” Cassie said, but I think it takes a completely different set of skills to be a judge. “These are not disgruntled defendants or prisoner rights people,” but a variety of people “all drawing the same conclusion,” she said. She ended with probably the best quote of the day: “We keep coming back to the word arrogance. And once you put a black robe on a person, they don’t become less arrogant.” Her vote was No.

Eileen Duff managed to get facts wrong as she explained why she was voting Yes for Wall. She said that she had gone back and listened to tapes of the three-day hearing—this she said, is how she makes her decisions— and listened “to what the folks who came in said against Wall. And in listening to Patricia Garin’s testimony, I was really struck by two things.” Here is where Duff totally screwed up her understandings. She twisted Patty Garin’s words, absurdly saying Garin supported Cinelli’s release (Maybe she had said  he looked good at the time on paper, Ms. Duff? Parole is a man-made system, Ms Duff, and there will be mistakes, see my article here. The whole Board voted to release him). Wall based new systems on his Cinelli clean-up, yes, because Patrick was under fire. But no, Ms. Duff, you don’t know this: “If the parole rules Josh Wall had in place today, Cinelli never would have happened.” And she obviously did not hold much weight in the repercussions of the system that has been put in place by Wall and affected many parolees: Lifers wait months for decisions; our lifer paroling rate has gone down and this is against public safety. It was pretty clear that Duff didn’t believe the White Paper on Parole which laid out Josh Wall’s disastrous record, or did she believe any of the facts about the seven month delays in hearings getting word to parolees. Her vote was a resounding ring of support for Wall but maybe as much for Patrick. He did wish her Happy Birthday at the end of the hearing.

Marilyn Devaney’s testimony went on and on and on, and frankly she sounded as if she had been coached. Of course it is possible that she managed to research and believe all of the glowing things witnesses said about Wall and to disbelieve all of the witnesses against him. Her big phrase of the day was “character assassination” of which she spoke on and on, accusing all those who testified against Wall of lying: parolee Donald Perry, Reverend Jason Lydon, a law student — all lied. Since Wall also felt they lied, she seemed to be echoing his words. She also defended Wall on the accusation by esteemed attorney Willy Davis who felt Wall’s getting jury backgrounds was a “win at all cost” attitude. She said she was grateful for all those who contacted her in opposition and she tried to contact them back– but I tried and know of many others whose calls she did not return. She voted Yes. Cipollini voted Yes. 

Michael Albano had sent a letter in last week to the Governor indicating he could not support the nomination of Josh Wall. He did not give a speech.

It was amazing that a man who generated this much opposition–hearings that went on for weeks–after his nomination in July, stands as a superior court judge, confirmed in a bit less than a 2/3 vote, which is what a parolee in Massachusetts must get to be released. But whereas Wall feels unanimous decisions are good for the Parole Board, I am certain he was glad he didn’t have to have a unanimous decision here.

I would suggest letting your councilors know how you feel about their vote on Josh Wall. I, for one, will be working against my governor’s councilor (Duff) when her term comes up. It is important to follow some of these races because now there are many judges (13?) who still will need to be approved (or not) before the Governor leaves office.

The best news story is reporter David Boeri’s from WBUR http://jeantrounstine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/news_1015_josh-wall-confirmed.mp3

But even that report doesn’t get into the impact this decision will have on our courts. Let’s hope for the sake of thousands of men and women who will come before him, that Josh Wall’s life from here on out tries to prove those who do not believe he will be a fair judge–wrong.

I have decided to write about the Education Justice Symposium which is taking place this weekend in Champaign Illinois. I will be tweeting chunks of the conference as we go along so you can get a sense of what folks from all over the country are talking about when they talk about higher Ed in prison.

From last night, here is Susan Burton from A New Way of Life who really has imaginative ideas about reentry because she began with experience. Here son was shot “accidentally” by a cop in LA and that led to years of drugs and alcohol and incarceration. But eventually she developed this program that has offered home to 750 women coming out of prison, A New Way of Life, featured here. Here she is:

First speaker, Friday, October 10, is Rob Granite, a formerly incarcerated person, who told a moving story about watching a mother bird giving birth to babies. He saw a bird struggling after it fell out of the nest, and Rob never got to know what happened to him. He searched, wondered, discovered it had flown away. He tells the story because he identifies with building a nest inside of a precarious place. Rob said that often times, in prison, guys try to ignore that need but others get it. He said that you don’t really attach yourselves to people but he got attached to learning.

The Education Justice Program(EJP) promotes learning in a circle. The circle diffuses the power, he said, discussing his experience in prison with EJP. He has been out only weeks. Also said that in terms of those of us who teach behind bars: No way can the focus be to save people. Being conscious of what perspective a person brings to prison teaching is important. A person is the audience commented that “Everybody has a vibration rate,” and after years in a California prison realizes he needed to understand that and slow down his vibration rate.

Session Two: An incarcerated person from prison said that being an educator is activism. His words came to us through tape and audio. His name is Kemuyah and he feels he has had things withheld because of security. He said “I am unaware of any research” that goes against DOC, indicating that research and education should allowed to him. But it is. This makes it impossible for educational Justice to really exist. Most important info from him talks about how fraternization, punishment, fear, the prison reality that compromises the educational environment. “Educating incarcerated students is serious business.” And prison officials should not be able to use security to resist education or free exchange of ideas. Security must be detrimental I.e. Let’s take the shackles off educators.

When we were able to go into Danville Prison that evening, where papers were given to and by prisoners in the program. I quoted Angela Davis’s words to Kemuyah: “Prisons are an incubator of outdated ideologies,” I said, and asked him to comment on that in relationship to his paper and to all the barriers he had experienced. Isn’t that common, to be expected, I wondered? A discussion ensued where the most interesting comment came from another prisoner  who said that it was up to prisoners to open up those barriers and essentially be the change: “As citizens we need to update outdated measures.” It was an incredibly powerful moment that showed more than any other to me what EJP fostered in its program.

I was also impressed earlier in the day by Haneed Shakur, a former student who told us the impact on himself in taking the program where he was in school in prison from 8:30am to 2:30pm. He said education gave him power; and he learned to write. He began reacting to quotes that made sense to him: Ghandi, Martin Luther King Etc. and these he  was exposed to first by a teacher when he was in Cook County Jail. Most crucial for him about EJP is that he never felt like an incarcerated person but always was treated as a student.

EJP also presented Barbara Lawrence who was a former prosecutor and police officer—not your average combination to become an activist. She teaches CJ students and said “We are talking about cops, courts, and corrections.”  The standard low level criminal pursued by cops, in the so-called War on Drugs, she gradually got to know was false. But financial incentive to arrest and only arresting people of color did exist. She uses the Michelle Alexander discussion to point out why police do not go to rich neighborhoods to get drug users there. When she questioned things, she was transferred. Ultimately she became a prosecutor and hated the fact that she didn’t believe in some of the laws that she had to convict people of breaking. Then she became a public defender and now teaches in a community and Justice program at Guillford College. She left us asking us to think about what is going on in all aspects of this system. And lie Susan Burton, the night before said that the next big fight will be against police brutality.

Today, I’ll leave  you with the words of Michael Brawn, another student from EJP who said “Humanities-based education can help us to be better men.” It wasn’t until freedom was taken away that he realized the freedom in education.” While there is a weekend of resistance in Ferguson Missouri, where the name “Michael Brown” resonated for me as I looked at so many of the men of color who live at Danville, it was almost appalling to think they were safer growing up with an EJP education than to grow up on the streets.

Tom Tyler, whose PhD is from Yale, in his book Why People Follow the Law and in his groundbreaking and well-received scientific research, indicates that the manner in which litigants are treated by judges is the single most important factor in their adherence to the law.

That is a fascinating bit of information when you consider what the Massachusetts Governor’s Council must decide next week on Wednesday, October 8, at 12 noon, when they vote on whether or not Parole Board Chair Josh Wall will or will not take up the gavel. His judge creds were praised by a few more attorneys who came to testify for him on this second day, standing by his ability to give people a fair shake. But this was a day where his Parole Board behavior was also mightily challenged.

“I saw myself as a public servant,” Josh Wall said Wednesday, September 24, speaking about why he accepted the position of Prole Board Chair. “And therefore [I] considered it my duty to say, yes, if the Governor of Massachusetts says, as he did, that we have a problem with public safety and you can help.” Wall told this to members of the Governor’s Council at the second day-long controversial hearing. “Let’s parole the right people who are likely to succeed,” the governor told him, and Wall, admitting he knew nothing about parole when he came on, said he adopted the Governor’s philosophy, although he did not exactly mention what that was besides that sound bite. My sense has always been, at the time, it was “Don’t Make Any Mistakes.”

While it was never crystal clear if he took the Chair position because his real goal was to become a superior court judge, Wall certainly went to work to make no mistakes. The result was parole rates declined substantially and some felt this was against everything we know that indicates good policy and public safety. Wall holds that he has “reformed” the Board, in part, because of his commitment to fairness and equity. He feels he has regained public confidence in parole. Wall declared that recidivism is down for parolees and that the Board has redrafted every policy about parole supervision. As an example, he said was “murderers now get more supervision than shoplifters.”

Of course, he did not say that since he took over, parolees can be violated for a litany of technical infractions that are sending people back to prison needlessly. As I wrote in Boston Magazine” studies have demonstrated that enforcing graduated sanctions if parolees violate their [parole] terms works better than returning them to prison.” Wall didn’t mention the long delays getting decisions to parolees or the intimidation that has caused many parolees not to speak out against him or come anywhere near these  hearings before the Governor’s Council. They fear retribution. But Wall will face questions from the Governors Councilors on Friday, October 3, at 10:30am when they resume for Part 3.

Wall was again roundly criticized for his temperament and his behavior on the Board. And in an interesting moment Councilor Iannella said that anyone who wants Wall to recuse himself will get that privilege–if Mr. Wall becomes judge.

Parolee Donald Perry, the only parolee who testified in person against Wall, said he stood for those who were afraid to speak out. He told of his circus experience with Parole. He had served his time and had been living in the community on parole for many years. He was in his car and stopped because the person he had picked up hitch-hiking was carrying stolen property. When Perry was revoked for this supposed-crime about which he says he knew nothing and was found not guilty of in a court of law, he served an excessive 19 months. He mentioned how Wall had been interviewed by a crew filming his story, and he told them:”I don’t know what he[Perry] did but I know he did something,” Perry still wears a bracelet and has a curfew of 10:00 pm and said Wall is hypocritical and does not treat people fairly. “I don’t believe in double standards,” said Perry, and then playing on the horrendous 5 year setback that has become au courant during the Wall Board (used to be 2 year) he said, “So that in 5 years, if he has demonstrated he can treat people fairly, he should be renominated.”

Patti Garin, a criminal defense attorney and co-director of the Northeastern University Law School Prisoners Assistance Program, said that only 42 lifers have actually walked out the door in 3 1/2 years during Wall’s tenure as Board chair. And there are approximately 130 hearings a year, said Garin. That’s only 10.8% who have actually gotten through their required step-down programs to be on the street. The length of time waiting for a decision now is 7.5 months, and before the Wall board, it was 60 days. She mentioned what disrespect this seems to show for the people waiting and their families.

Joel Thompson, a Prisoner Legal Services attorney told a compelling story of how Wall had commented on a very difficult parolee. Wall said sarcastically, “What a proud day for this family,” meaning the family of the man seeking parole. “Very fine people.”

But it is not only the words, witnesses said, but the tone. Wall is nasty sometimes and when you read these words, you have to hear the tone with which they were spoken,

I testified how I had heard him demean witnesses who came to testify for their loved ones seeking parole. At a hearing for Luis Cosme’ in 2011, Wall spent an inordinate amount of time criticizing how the lawyer had been duped by Cosme’:
“Were you given the opportunity to plead guilty before the trial?
“The offer was to plead guilty to second-degree murder?”
“What were the arguments your lawyer tried to put forth?”
“What did you think when you heard your lawyer putting forth false arguments?”
“Did you ever tell your lawyer why don’t we go with some of the truth?”
“How do you think they [the victim’s family] felt when they had to listen to an
attempt to create lies for the jury?”
“Were there any family members sitting in the courtroom for this spectacle?”

These are the kinds of disrespect and disregard for the people who seek parole that Joel Thompson called “gratuitous comments.” They just don’t show respect. Reverend Jason Lydon also pointed out how demeaning Chairman Wall was at a hearing for Frank Soffen,a sick and elderly prisoner who will now die behind bars.

Over and over, one thing seemed to be clear: people who came to speak against Josh Wall had never opposed a judgeship. I wonder if any other hearing for someone nominated to be judge has taken twelve hours even before the councilors begin their questioning?

Stay tuned.

It never happens. That’s what the Chairman of the Massachusetts Parole Board said on Tuesday, August 26, at the parole hearing for lifer Keyma Mack when families of both the victim and the murderer reached out to each other with sobs of remorse and vows of forgiveness. Mothers, fathers, cousins, siblings — all were refusing to be bound by shame and hatred. For those of us who witnessed this, it was a moment of grace and an example of why restorative justice was created.

Image courtesy of National Justice News

Keyma Mack, who shot Christopher Pires in 1992, was the fourth juvenile in Massachusetts to be eligible for parole and to have his hearing before the seven-member Board. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision, Miller v. Alabama that enabled this historical moment. Miller said science had proven juveniles were different from adults; they needed a judge’s thorough consideration, case by case, and could not “automatically” be sentenced to life. Then in 2013, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Diatchenko v. District Attorney ruled life without parole unconstitutional for “all” juveniles in Massachusetts.

At the hearing for Keyma Mack, many elements were not surprising. Mack, who committed his crime at age seventeen is now almost forty; he talked about his transformation behind bars, program participation, prison job, and how Islam had helped him focus on changing his attitudes. He said he had been a boy when he killed Chris but he hung his head as he admitted he had shot him in the back six times. “I shot him until he stopped moving,” Mack said. He owned up to running away after shooting Pires in their home town of Dorchester. He got involved with more guns and drug dealing in Springfield while on the run. At the time, he couldn’t bear facing his crime and all those he had hurt, but now, he seemed to know exactly how awful that crime was. He apologized to the Pires family for taking away their son, brother, cousin, and grandson. He remembered the grandfather’s house and in fact, had somewhat known Chris.

In some ways, it was the all too familiar story of guns, drugs, and the need to be cool in a community that prized toughness. A tragic story that we need to upend.

But if anyone had witnessed what happened before the hearing began, they would have seen the extraordinary. The twenty-five or so family members and friends of Keyma Mack all stood and joined hands and prayed. It was touching to see them, each and every person standing together for their loved one.

The Mack family as well as Keyma himself all expressed their deep remorse for the Pires family at the hearing. No, that is not accurate enough. They each turned from facing the row of Parole Board members who sat behind a table to that supposed other side of the aisle. They said how much they ached for the Pires family. The mother of Christopher at one point had to leave the room, her wailing was so fresh as if the wound was yesterday’s. There is no end to this grief.

But in spite of the magnitude of such a loss, something amazing occurred in this bland room where two aisles of hardback chairs are separated by a thin strand of rope. When  the Pires family, one by one, including the mother who barely spoke English, each took their turn to supposedly oppose Mack’s release, they did not. They told Keyma Mack, who was sitting leg-chained behind them, while they would never forget, that they forgave him. Sob after sob, sorrow after sorrow, they forgave the man who was once a boy who killed their boy. They did not oppose him but what he had done. They wanted him to make meaning out of his life. And Keyma said later, that no matter what happened with his parole, he would do so.

It was a remarkable moment. And it led to the mothers talking together after the hearing. It led to an unscripted, raw, but very real moment of what many would call “restorative justice.” Instead of revenge, the Pires family wanted restoration. Spontaneously, not with any preparation did this moment occur. But it was a coming together where families began to understand each other’s pain and to empathize. “Is that possible?” Mack’s father had cried out when he heard one of the Pires family verbally forgiving their son. This was an epiphany.

The formal practice of restorative justice “emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime,” and teaches how to do that. It is not easy. It takes time and much anger and hurt. The Mack and Pires families may choose this road now that they have this experience. But in a place where so often the District Attorney claims that the criminal he convicted is still the vicious monster who took a life many many years ago, there was true forgiveness, more compassion, and a real end to some of the pain and suffering. The Pires family said that they felt something had been relieved for them by both seeing and by forgiving their son’s murderer.

Our justice system could learn much from these two families.

There never seems to be an end to injustice. Take the past month’s disgrace, five unarmed young black men killed by police: Ferguson’s Mike Brown; Staten Island’s Eric Garner; John Crawford from Beavercreek, Ohio; L.A.’s Ezell Ford; and in Victorville, California, Dante Parker. The pain is palpable. Just tune in to Twitter to see outraged people from across the country rightfully demanding answers and saying that peace will come only when there is justice. As Frederick Douglass said, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

But now comes another variety of injustice that most of you might not have seen coming. And this one’s about women. It is also unsettling because it deals with an additional class of the unarmed: substance addicted persons who are suffering.

                                             Photo from Inmagine.com

First some facts: Did you know that in Massachusetts, if a woman (or man, but for our purposes, think woman) on drugs or alcohol is deemed capable by the courts of risk to themselves or others, the court can involuntarily commit them to an inpatient substance abuse treatment program? This can happen per a little-known section of the Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 123, Section 35, which authorizes civil commitment for up to 90 days.

Here’s the catch 22: if no in patient-treatment facility exists, these women can be sent to Framingham MCI. Massachusetts is the only state in the nation that imprisons people for drug or alcohol addiction. Note I have not mentioned the word “crime.”

And once sent to Framingham—are you ready?—these women detox in cells without any medication as the Department of Correction is not licensed to dispense medications such as Methadone, Suboxone or Vivitrol, those often used for heroin withdrawal; they start out in the medical unit but then, these women cannot be mixed with rest of population, said Jessie Rossman, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Massachusetts, in a phone interview. After detoxing, Rossman said that they are “housed in the ‘Mod,’ a unit with bunk beds. They are forced to stay inside for 20 hours a day, they must have medications and meals brought to them, and they have virtually no access to outdoors with only 2 ½ hours six days a week of outside time and some recreation time.” They do not have access to the library. They cannot pray in the chapel. They cannot participate in programs. They are, in  a very real sense treated more harshly than those convicted of crimes.

And if it wasn’t crazy enough, knowing that people can be committed by a relative, guardian, police officer, physician court official, or even by themselves, it would almost make sense if they could get treatment for addiction. But the most ironic part of all of this: for women who are sent to MCI Framingham to detox, there are absolutely no treatment programs made available to them. None of the anonymous programs like Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous. And why you ask? Aha, the icing on the Catch 22 cake! Drug treatment at Framingham is only available to prisoners who have been convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison.

For the past three years 2011-2013, 540 women have been in this exact situation, sent to Framingham where some served up to 90 days, and the majority averaged two weeks each. Sociologist Susan Sered, writing about this on her blog,said, “While the law requires that the court call for a psychological assessment, it is unclear what that assessment means. In any case, there is no trial, no due process, and no possibility for appeal.”

Justice? Not so much said a suit filed this past June by the ACLU, Prisoners’ Legal Services, The Center for Public Representation, and attorneys from the law firm, WilmerHale. The suit logically aims to have women get care and treatment for alcoholism or substance abuse in a Department of Public Health licensed facility in the community, as required by Section 35. It wants them out of Framingham as soon as possible. Recently the Boston Globe suggested that “the state could find another solution through private contracts that would preserve women’s rights and treat addiction as the medical condition that it is.”

Robert Fleischner, assistant director of the Center for Public Representation, put this into powerful words: “Imagine trying to get help for a child in a desperate struggle with addiction, and that the treatment facility you thought you were sending them to turns out to be a prison instead. It’s a parent’s nightmare.”

In a civilized society, black unarmed boys would not be shot by police officers without clear visuals of weapons and danger to one’s life, and even then, not six times in the head. In a civilized society, as Jim Pingeon of Prisoners’ Legal Services said, “No one should be sent to prison for a disease.”