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.”

Thank you so much for your calls over the past weeks for fair sentencing for youth. It made a difference! In the bill reported out of the Conference Committee,  we stopped the 10 year setback for all lifers and we won a right to treatment/education/allowable minimum classification if applicable for those sentenced as juveniles for homicide.

THE BILL, HOWEVER, STILL CONTAINS EXTREME SENTENCING MEASURES FOR CHILDREN CONVICTED OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER. While it provides for initial parole eligibility at 20-30 years in felony murder cases, it enhances the sentences to 25-30 years in cases of premeditation, and to a mandatory 30 years in cases of cruelty and atrocity. Also, there is no right to counsel at parole hearings in the final bill.

The House and Senate voted yesterday to pass this bill, S.2246. The bill will move to the Governor’s desk TODAY

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PLEASE MAKE ONE FINAL CALL TO THE GOVERNOR and urge him to amend the bill before signing it.

1. *THE BILL SHOULD PROVIDE FOR A SENTENCE OF 20-30 YEARS TO LIFE FOR ALL FORMS OF JUVENILE FIRST-DEGREE MURDER.Treating different theories of murder differently ignores the fact that these are KIDS who generally act impetuously, without considering consequences. There should be NO enhanced sentencing for Extreme Atrocity and Cruelty and NO enhanced sentencing for premeditated murder! THEORIES OF MURDER DO NOT ACCOUNT FOR JUVENILE DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR.

2. *RIGHT TO COUNSEL and to ACCESS TO NECESSARY EXPERTS at their parole hearings. It will be impossible for these prisoners to mount an effective parole hearing on their own after so many years in prison.

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CALL THE GOVERNOR ASAP:

 Governor Deval Patrick, Phone: 617-725-4005
Office of the Governor Room 280 Boston, MA 02133
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Things are moving very quickly so we need you to CALL to Governor Patrick IMMEDIATELY to ask him to amend the bill.

*NOTE: These provisions ignore our SJC’s understanding of “the unique capacity of youth to change and be rehabilitated” and are inconsistent with the Court’s finding in Diatchenko, based on extensive scientific evidence and prior rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, that “it is impossible to determine, at the time of sentencing, which youth are capable of rehabilitation and which are not.” The bill that is finally signed into law should provide for a minimum term of not less than 20 years nor more than 30 years for murder in the first degree committed by a person on or after the person’s fourteenth birthday and before the person’s eighteenth birthday.