((The following published with permission of the author))
WHY NOT US, AND WHY NOT NOW?
AN OPEN APPEAL FROM C-NUMBERS FOR JUSTICE
Michael Clark (C-10666)
Dixon Correctional Center
2600 N. Brinton Avenue
Dixon, IL 61021
(July 10, 2003)
Prepared for Town Hall Meeting on indeterminate Sentencing,
Chicago, July 19, 2003.
==============================================================
ABSTRACT
This presentation is written as an address to this panel, and an
invitation to its attending audience. We appeal to you to explore this
course of dialogue in an effort to implore our Governor to make those
wrongs right in our criminal justice system; to grant the C-numbers a
deserving chance in becoming citizens again of this great State of
Illinois.
=======================================================
WHY NOT US, AND WHY NOT NOW?
AN OPEN APPEAL FROM C-NUMBERS FOR JUSTICE
It is my hope that the information being presented in this paper will
explain, educate, as well as enlighten the attending audience to
the issues concerning C-number prisoners. It is neither meant nor
intended to be an indictment of the criminal justice system, or its
supporting agencies. Any criticisms that you might find within the
body of this paper are issues of paramount importance worthy of
being addressed. The Illinois criminal justice system, according
to our current and former Governors Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan,
is broken, fragmented, incomplete, and/or disorganized.
Our current Governor, Rod Blagojevich, is well-aware of the
inappropriate situation regarding the C-numbers who have
languished in prison for 30 years or more and who are deserving of an
objective standard and/or criteria to assure a fair and impartial
process of release. The Prisoner Review Board has arbitrarily
released some C-numbers (by majority vote), while "setting" others
without any apparent reasoning. The boilerplate excuse given to
deny C-numbers parole is unacceptable, irrational, and a clear
indication of the arbitrary and capricious process of the Prisoner
Review Board. It is also a contradiction of procedural policy,
because it states, "That to release you would deprecate the
seriousness of the offense, and promote disrespect for the law." The
majority of your remaining C-numbers are serving sentences for the
crime of murder. If the aforementioned statement was valid, then no
one would qualify for parole. Murder in our society will always be
considered a serious offense, as it results in loss of life and
hardship.
No doubt, such an action would promote disrespect for the laws that
band us together as a society. How, then, can the Prisoner Review
Board justify the release of those C-numbers who they voted to
parole, and not violate the very principles they give as a reason to
release some prisoners and deny parole to others? On January 11,
2002, then-Governor George Ryan admitted in his speech to the public
while addressing an audience at Northwestern University, that our
criminal justice system is broken. The former Governor, and
then-chief executive officer of the state, was not only referring to
the circumstances pertaining to death row inmates, which prompted his
decision of blanket clemency for all death row inmates. Rather, he
directed his allegations at every level of our judicial process,
including all departmental agencies that comprise our criminal justice
system.
The failure of our criminal justice system in Illinois is a direct
result of the lack of fairness and equality that has plagued the
procedural process. The unchecked arbitrary manner in which the
Prisoner Review Board functions, in the absence of standards or
criteria for the evaluation of parole indicates the political mind
set of an administrative course that has lost its way. To realize
the impact of the aforementioned statement, one only needs to
understand those celebrated court cases reflecting the unconscious
attitude the courts have taken towards the Constitutional rights of
prisoners.
The case of Heirens v. Mizell (729 f. 2d 449 (1984)), which was
reversed by the Federal Court of Appeals, empowered the Prisoner
Review Board to determine parole decisions without utilizing any
standards or criteria, and allowing the erroneous application of the
standard response of, "To release you would deprecate the
seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect for the law." The
case involves Mr. William Heirens, commonly referred to as the
"lipstick killer," who was arrested in 1946 at the age of 17 for two
murders. Now, at 74, Mr. Heirens has served a total of 57 years in
prison, three years short of six decades. to my knowledge, no
other inmate in the state or country has served longer.
Incarcerating Mr. Heirens for 57 years is not justice; it's
injustice. No civilized society should be willing to take credit for
such an arbitrary capricious act of punishment. Mr. Heirens is
symbolic of the injustice of our failing criminal justice system;
that's an embarrassment to the concept of fairness and forgiveness,
and more important, mercy.
We often make use of words without being cognizant of the full
import of their meaning; words such as deterrence, punishment,
rehabilitation, and justice. We often fall short of the goals and/or
objectives we set out to accomplish in our efforts to maintain
professionalism. It is important that we not be in denial about the
truths regarding our criminal justice system. As a result of hard
work and progressive research by two Northwestern University Law
School students, Christopher Coleman and Sarah Lively (class of
2003), we have an enlightening overview of our criminal justice
system and just how dysfunctional it is. As Coleman and Lively
point out in their article written for the Chicago Sun Times:
In 1983, a federal judge ruled that the prisoner review
board could not apply newer stricter rules for parole
to justify keeping Heirens incarcerated, and therefore
ordered Heirens released. However, police, prosecutors
and the press waged an inflammatory campaign to keep
Heirens behind bars, eventually persuading the General
Assembly to pass a resolution urging the prisoner
review board not to release Heirens. Even the Seventh
Circuit Court of Appeals caved in to public pressure
and ignored its own precedent to prevent Heirens'
release.
Heirens' case exemplifies all that is wrong with
Illinois' justice system; it contains all the flaws and
injustices that troubled Ryan and provoked his
courageous actions...(Coleman and Lively, 2003).
The judicial branch of government has consistently turned away
blindly from relevant issues regarding the Constitutional rights of
prisoners. The courts have ignored setting forth guidelines and
parameters concerning safeguards of Constitutional protections.
The unfavorable decisions against prisoners' rights have served to
inspire and motivate the inappropriate behavior of the independent
quasi-judicial entity known as the Prisoner Review Board, thus
lending to the gravity of their arbitrary and capricious decision
making concerning parole of C-numbers. To better understand the
procedure process of parole and how it affects the participating
C-numbers, a descriptive, in-depth explanation is provide by A
Position Paper on Indeterminate Sentencing and the Illinois Prisoner
Review Board by the Prison Action Committee:
When the PRB was created in 1978, and for the next six
years, parole hearings were conducted by a three member
panel. Three member teams would visit the institution
and conduct a hearing with the prisoner. Subsequent to
the hearing those same three members would vote on
whether or not to parole the prisoner. A majority vote,
or two members, would determine the prisoner's fate.
All the members had exposure to the prisoner, the
ability to meet him or her in person, become familiar
with issues concerning each case, get to know the
family and supporters, and be able to experience the
demeanor and attitude of everyone they met.
In 1984, that all changed. The PRB adopted a policy
where only one member of the board would interview the
prisoner, and then make a presentation to the full IRB,
called an Enbanc hearing. At the Enbanc proceeding, you
only have one member who has had any contact with the
prisoners, and that member, whether for or against the
release, makes the recommendation to the full board. A
discussion takes place if there are opposing views, and
then a vote is taken. Under the current system, it
takes eights votes to be paroled. The change in policy
was specifically implemented to limit paroles,
subordinating the philosophy of rehabilitation inherent
in the concept of parole (p. 1).
The fact that the process of parole is tainted should be of great
concern, as it deprives those parties who would participate and rely
on it no fairness or redress. The fact that our current governor
has acknowledged the inappropriate manner in which the C-numbers are
being dealt with is indeed a start in the right direction of
realizing that there is a problem of fairness. We hope that his
effort to restructure the Prisoner Review Board is more than idle
talk. After over 30 years in prison, the C-numbers deserve a chance
to gain parole and be released back into society.
The legislative intent was to abolish the concept of
indeterminate sentencing, thus phasing out the old law. This
special group (C-numbers) was set aside and not granted the same fair
treatment afforded to those who received a fixed release date. It
is this practice that our Governor points to as wrong and
inappropriate.
We urge our Governor to address this issue and propose
legislation that would effect the release of the C-numbers who have
waited patiently on a process that has failed to grant them parole.
Most C-numbers are aging inmates who currently have the health
problems that develop with age. They deserve the decency to return
home to their communities and live out their remaining days. They
pose no threat to society. They have fulfilled the obligation of
their sentence through punishment, and have the right to be
released. To do so would restore justice to a system that has all but
abandoned it.
We, as C-numbers, no longer rest our hopes on the court system. It
has become obvious that the justices are preoccupied with the "mythos
of society," which holds that "the ideas of dangerousness and the laws
that we fashion are specific to a time, place, and pattern of popular
beliefs. The utilitarian concept would direct our concerns toward the
future, and not the past. as a few of a remaining class of
C-numbers, we have survived the system's "war on crime," its "war on
drugs," and its "war on gangs." More importantly we've
rehabilitated ourselves in an effort to assimilate back into
society. We served over 30 years behind the dismal walls of prison,
where time molds and shapes the character of broken men. Faith and
belief have molded us into productive, progressive individuals
deserving of due consideration pertaining to liberty.
We appeal to our communities and its residents, our cities and its
people, our state and its citizens, to aide us in our struggle for
justice. We challenge this panel to allow this current forum on
indeterminate sentencing to be a first of a series of town hall
meetings formatted and structured so that we, as C-numbers, can
receive the fairness and justice that this great state of Illinois is
capable of providing. We encourage our former and current Governors to
work diligently in correcting the wrongs in our criminal codes. We
caution our legislators' view of how grim our future is without
changes in our criminal justice system.
Accordingly, we would like to thank this panel for the courage it has
shown in acknowledging our problems as C-numbers. We hope that this
meeting will serve notice to community-based groups and church
organizations that it is their responsibility to have a voice in the
issues of human affairs that affect their community. We have paid our
debt to society; we merely seek its courtesy of forgiveness in
acknowledging that, like them, we're human.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Prison Action Committee. 2000. Position Paper on Indeterminate
Sentencing and the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. Prepared for the
Illinois House of Representatives, Prison Management Reform
Committee, August 1.
Coleman, Christopher, and Sarah Lively. 2003. " "Decades-Old Prisoner
Case Needs Review." Chicago Sun-Times, 2 February.
Return to JT's homepage