For the record

There seems to be some confusion these days as to what Christianity consists of, what Christians believe, and how they behave. This is nowhere more true than in the political arena. I do not wish to join in anyone’s political arguments or mudslinging. But, as someone who lives by the Bible and practices the Christian faith, I want to make a few clear statements, for the record.

God is not a God of coercion. He is not a God of injustice. He is not a God of cruelty. And to that end, let it be understood: torture is an act of Satan. To put a person in agony by forcing the sensations of drowning and suffocation upon them; to commit torture of any kind; to justify it, defend it or excuse it, is to blaspheme God’s character, take His Holy Name in vain, and break His commandments.

If you believe you love and follow Jesus, remember this: that when Satan could think of nothing worse to do to the Son of God, he instigated human beings to torture Him, intending to force Him to say what He would not say, and sin against His Father. God does not use Satan’s methods, and He does not excuse them.

Friends, there is a Judgment. It is not far ahead. It will be exercised on behalf of the oppressed, the discriminated, the cheated, the brutalized, the marginalized, and yes, the tortured. God, who knows when a sparrow falls, is not ignorant, and He is not indifferent to cruelty. He cannot be swayed by votes, or influenced by lobbyists. He will not hold those guiltless who take His Name in vain and call upon Him to justify their crimes.

“Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow.” Cursed is the one who mistreats the helpless, the vulnerable, the prisoner, the foreigner, and the down-and-out.

“And all the people shall say, Amen.”

Text from Deuteronomy 27:19, Authorized King James Version

For the oceans

Even though this blog is focused on human rights, I can’t help but make a plug for a group I’ve newly discovered.  Authors4Oceans has formed at a critical time for the survival of many species, and at a time when microplastics have made their way into the water supplies of the most remote parts of the planet.  Their mission is to educate, and to inform, particularly young people who are growing up in our plastic culture.

Please stop by, and consider making your own changes to give us a healthier world.

Authors4Oceans

can also be found on Twitter as @Authors4Oceans.

Where we go from here

I’ve hesitated for some time as to how to proceed with this blog, given that political civility is so much scarcer than it used to be.  Really, the only way is forward.  Where injustice exists, silence is not an option.

At the same time, I want to set a direction, so that you, as readers, will know what to expect.  First of all, everyone is welcome here, liberal or conservative.  I’m not buying this idea that none of us can be in the same room.  However, a level of sane and civil discourse stays here.  Comment moderation will stay on.  Snark, drive-by cheap shots, name-calling, and bashing of any government or administration figure will not appear in the comments section.  We don’t have to agree with the people in charge, but we can disagree, and reprove, and even rebuke, without squatting to the level of third-graders in a sandbox spitting match.  The mature exercise of democracy means that we all stay grownups.  It also means that–regardless of our personal political opinions–we respect the office of elected official to the extent of treating those who fill it with the same courtesy that we would want the officials of our choice to be treated by persons who do not agree with them.

Thank you to everyone who reads for continuing here, in spite of the irregular postings.  God bless each one of you, and may you go forward wisely to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Here’s me, learning

I mailed a letter today. And I did what I don’t usually do. I pleaded. For my friend. For his life.

I’ve blogged about juvenile life sentences before, it’s true. But now the constitutional arguments have gone through the Supreme Court. The answers have come down. The states, including Michigan, have answered with legislation; juvenile life-without-parole sentences are on the docket, and … this suddenly means something horribly personal.

Because my friend, who has served over twenty-seven years for a crime he never committed, gets to ask a court to change his sentence. From no parole, ever, to maybe parole, someday. In other words, to be resentenced to a term of years.

It’s a process where everybody is supposed to get the chance to talk.  Prosecutor.  Victim’s family.  Defense.  The convicted.  The experts.  And friends.  So that I get to say a few words too. To write to the trial court, testifying that in my experience, Efren Paredes is a fit person to rejoin society.

There are restrictions. I’m not allowed to argue his innocence. Twenty-seven years on a wrongful conviction doesn’t get to weigh. I’m writing for a man who is guilty to the eyes of the law–trying to convince someone that he’s sane, that he’s humane, that he’s done nothing but lift up other people and look upward himself for twenty-seven years. That all he wants to do is go home to sit on his own front porch.

Then, after adding my personal testimony, I’m reduced to the head-banging, stuck-where-the-sun-don’t-shine argument that people who have actually committed these kinds of crimes have generally gone home in many fewer years. That therefore, on comparative grounds, this supposedly guilty man’s sentence has been unfair. Does anybody not see the irony of the insult?

And then…. I have nothing left to do but plead.

I wonder if anyone will listen. The prosecutor wants a life sentence without parole all over again. The guilty teenagers have served their time and been released. None are interested in coming back and telling the truth, or clearing the one they blamed for plotting their crime. The victim’s family has been adamant throughout the process that this last symbol of their loss must pay, and pay forever.

Only my friend, Efren Paredes, remains hopeful that somehow, someway, someday, somebody is going to acknowledge the truth and act with justice; even though every door to it has been slammed in his face, over and over again.

I never knew what that crashing door sounded like, until I made my first visit to Muskegon Correctional Facility–my first visit to a prison. It’s the door between the visitor lobby … and everything else. It’s electronically controlled, and it hits with such a slam that you’d expect the glass in it to shatter. Everytime an officer comes in, goes out, slam. Again and again and again.

Sitting on the hard plastic chair in that lobby, waiting to be called up, I look around me, and I realize: except for a sprinkling of somebody’s fathers, we are a company of women. Black, white and hispanic. Mostly under forty. Dressed up, as if we were going out to dinner. Eager. Anxious. Some sad. None of us looking as if the men in our lives ought to be in prison. A collection of stereotypes busted.

We are called up, we are searched, we go in. We find our seats next to the men we’ve come to see. We get to hug, just quickly. We talk in very, very low voices, trying to be private while the whole room is talking. The girl sitting behind me is crying. A black couple–inmate and companion–take the seats across from us, and I can’t help wondering at the unrealness: how tall and beautiful they both are, how perfectly she’s dressed, how we are all four sitting here, polite and polished as if we’ve met in an upper-class restaurant. We’re not allowed to talk to them, but I ask, just once, if our table is in their way. No, she says gently. Everything’s fine.

We eat vending-machine chips and candy and sandwiches off styrofoam plates on a cheap plastic table, and act like we’re out to dinner. We talk and talk until we’re both tired and can’t think of anything to say, and then we try to go on talking anyway, because otherwise, it’s over. And when it is over, we throw the plates in the garbage, and hug–quickly–and I go.

Slam.

I’ve written before about the difference: between not knowing and knowing somebody who is wrongfully incarcerated. How it’s so much easier to ignore the fact that innocent men go to prison, when it’s not personal. And to that end, I need to make a confession.

There is a time, and not far gone, when I would have looked past Charles Lewis and not seen him. I am ashamed, and it is truth.

Charles Lewis is black. He is from Detroit. He is fifty-eight years old, and has spent forty-one of those years serving a juvenile life sentence without parole. The circumstances of his case overwhelmingly vindicate him; and if that were not enough, the outrageous mishandling of his files in the court system–the original file has been completely lost–should require redress. Not, however, in the eyes of his prosecutor, who wants him to give up his life without ever seeing freedom.

I’d never heard of Charles Lewis’ conviction, or that he has protested his innocence for forty-one years. That’s not what I’m ashamed of. But I am, and I think I always will be ashamed, knowing that I would have read this article, and blinked and gone on, except for Efren….

Because the first thought that hit me, on reading the article above, was this: that when a man says he’s innocent, for that long, no matter what it’s cost him, he probably is. That when the evidence is strong in his favor, it’s probably true. That innocent men do go to prison, too frequently. I know that, because I know Efren.

And I’m ashamed that it took something real and personal and connected to my experience to make me stop and listen to Charles Lewis, when the most basic course of abstract justice would have demanded just that.

It all makes me wonder, how many people are listening to Efren? At last count, seventy-nine had signed the latest petition on his behalf. The one for the trial court, regarding his resentencing. I’m linking to it here…

… thanking you. For listening.

I don’t care….

… if you are a Democrat.

… if you are a Republican.

… if you are young.

… if you are old.

… if you are mentally ill, disenchanted, angry, poor, rich, white, black, drunk, sober, or, Heaven help you, a twisted soul who imagines you can rouse the ranks by attacking your own.

You are the person or people who firebombed a political party’s building, destroyed property, reinforced all the worst conspiracy theories, and added no good thing to an election year already floundering in outright insanity.

I’m sure, when you’re found, you will offer an excuse.  Just so you know ahead of time, I’m not buying it.  I don’t care what it is.

I’m just as sure that somebody will use your actions to do something just as criminal or worse.  I’m not buying that excuse either.

We have an election process, and a country, that deserves better than you.  We don’t need your ideas of protest to poison the last shreds of sanity left in this political discourse.

If you think violence is the answer, and firebombs are the answer, and burning political signs is the answer, you’re wrong.

Cut it out.  Now.

So say it, already

I admit to being a rubbernecker.  Not where there are lights and sirens, not when the fire department goes out, but when a public figure’s political implosion is in the making, oh, yes.  It’s such a nicely predictable event.  Stupid, offensive, sexist, racist comment.  Internet KABOOM.  Shards everywhere.  Countdown to apology in five … four … three….

“Sorry.”

Which no one, least of all me, believes, but hey, he said it.  That counts, right?

We have this thing with apology.  Be a murderer, be a rapist, be whatever vile thing human beings have ever invented, but for Pete’s sake apologize, and we’ll think just a little better of you.  We might even let you have another chance.  Just SAY IT.

I’m not actually that impressed with the way we reward the manipulative, the groveling and the insincere.  But parole boards go on doing it.  Whether in terms of pardons, commutations or paroles, remorse is a factor in the offender’s case.  You have to say it.

Which, if you didn’t do it, means you can lie to God, yourself, your fellow man and the State that sentenced you–or you can go on rotting out your sentence.  There is no other alternative.  Parole boards are not allowed to consider the possibility of innocence.  Legally, you were ruled guilty and they must consider you guilty.  Therefore, you must have remorse.

The murderer who can admit what he did has a better chance at freedom than you do.

Point two: we have this thing with believing convicted people must be guilty.  Even though we know innocent men go to prison, we can’t quite believe it until years after overwhelming evidence exonerates them.  This is the other societal cramp that binds the first one into law.  Both need to change.  Because they are so socially and legally engrained, they won’t change without a great change in social understanding.  Let’s get on it, people.

Starting with, I want you to see this film.  It needs to be made, must be released and shared.  There are just over three weeks left of a fundraiser that badly needs to be rocketed off the ground.  Please reblog, tweet, Facebook, pass on.  Help.

And I thank you.

***

Natural Life: A Case Study.  “The question of parole and remorse for one juvenile lifer.”

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/natural-life-a-case-study

Update: I want to add this article from the New York Times, because it shows hope for more progressive thinking.  Time for Michigan’s parole boards to get on board.

Claims of Innocence No Longer a Roadblock  (in New York State)

 

Update: Middleton to die after stay overturned

After a federal judge granted a brief stay of execution to evaluate Middleton’s compentency to be executed, an appeals court has overturned it.  In essence, the court ruled, Middleton failed to pursue the compentency issue at state level, and it’s too late.

John Middleton will die whether he is competent or not, whether he is innocent or not.  He will lose his life to a due process that is concerned with process to the exclusion, too often, of real justice.

Evidence proving he could not have committed the crime has been thoroughly disregarded by State and courts.  In other words, by men who should be supremely interested in anything that would prevent the kind of tragedy that takes place tonight–that would not need to take place, if those who guarded the law would keep the open minds and ears they are meant to keep.  This is a fail for all of us.

Rest in peace, John.  May you go gently.

Missouri, we are not proud of you.

“Who’s Sorry Now”

One minute after midnight, Wednesday morning, July 16, 2014. That’s tomorrow.

Tomorrow, if the State of Missouri has its way, John Middleton will be wrongfully executed in the face of a clear legal doubt. While his lawyers pursue last minute appeals–to the federal courts, perhaps the Supreme Court–Missouri has washed its hands of Middleton’s blood.

In a system that routinely fails to punish bad faith in prosecution–and again, rewards witnesses who please their prosecutors–this shouldn’t surprise anyone. What should surprise us is our apathy in the face of damning evidence: the justice we depend upon can just as quickly, and wrongfully, convict any one of us. But like a flock of sparrows, we wait until the scattered feathers settle–the cat is satisfied–and return as if we are not one less than we were yesterday.

Perhaps–I say this questioningly–apathy is only the bastard child of inexperience. It’s true that most of us have never been wrongly convicted, never known someone who is or has been wrongly convicted. I was the latter, once.

I know better now. It’s a mind-opening experience that filters every waking moment. The sunsets I can only send through photographs. The birdsongs I can only (try to) describe on paper. The world wide web of information–he loves to know what’s going on outside–that I can only filter through the clunky machinery of prison email and my letters. Above all, the years of life stripped away from a man whose dream is to sit on his own porch; and maybe to go for a walk if he feels like it–just to go, with nothing to bar the road and a horizon that goes on opening its doors.

In only one respect, my friend is lucky. His state does not have a death penalty. There’s still time, still a chance for someone to right so much wrong.

I’ve said in the past that I support the death penalty when fairly applied. I no longer believe that’s possible. Until we change, until our system of law and prosecution and witnessing and evidence changes, I can no longer support executions, whatever the crime. Life in prison, without parole, is long enough.

Yes, it’s too long for an innocent man. But maybe it’s long enough for the rest of us to nod our heads in belated justice, and say to a living human being, “we’re sorry. We made a mistake.”

Because frankly, just between you and me and the cemetary, that headstone doesn’t care who’s sorry now.

For the children’s sake

There are times when a journalist leaves a blogger without much more to add, and this is one of them. Except to ask–read this, please. And then contact your congressman. For the children’s sake.

A Refugee Crisis on the Border

Children Fleeing Gangs Look for Safety

We are human beings. We are not, I hope, without heart or compassion. To turn these little ones away, to deny them the care that belongs to refugees, is simply beyond heartless.

God bless the children.

Say it with me

Welcome home, Bowe Bergdahl.

I’m not talking about politics. I’m not talking about trades. I’m not talking about desertion, or treason, because you know what, there are plenty of people talking about every one of those things.

I’m talking about you, man and boy, an American, a soldier–friend and son and brother.

I’m talking about a boy who struggled with his deployment, wrote from the bitterness of his soul about the ugliness he saw, raged against colonial-style racism, walked away for a moment because … God knows why.

I’m talking about an American whose every known word has been thrown to judgment without a chance to speak any more words, who has been demonized and vilified by political bone-pickers; who doesn’t yet know that he’s hated, questioned and taunted before he even comes back to … God knows what.

I’m talking about a soldier who did everything he had to do to survive, until he almost forgot who he was–whose fragile life may still be undone by the cruelty of his own countrymen. God help him.

I’m talking about a friend who still has friends, a son who has parents, a brother to everyone who’s ever questioned injustice that he saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears, even if he didn’t say it the way someone twenty years older might have said it.

I’m saying loud and clear, welcome home. With open arms, welcome home.

With one more word for the men and women with stones in their hands and stones for hearts:

“Go learn what this means: I will have mercy and not sacrifice.”