I once said that if
I had been a slave back in the days of the antebellum South, I would have ended
my bondage the moment I realized what it was. Now, held in prison beyond my
out-date, I am faced with servitude that borders on slavery. (It is a fair
analogy, if for no other reason than each institution practices a systemic
degrading and dehumanizing of its captives, and does it with such disdain for
them as to treat them thus for as long as they wish.)
This effect is achieved by the State
of Michigan under Governor Snyder, with the support of this United States
government under President Obama. Here, in their state prisons, they hold
people—and by extension, their immediate families—in continuous servitude,
often for no other reason than they have the power to do so. Such arrogance
amounts to an abuse of power, which is always a poor excuse. Once a man has
done all that is asked of him, and he continues to be held in bondage, then
that man becomes the victim, and the State becomes the perpetrator.
In August, 1996, I was charged with
open murder. Subsequently convicted of second-degree murder, I was sentenced to
(paroleable) life in prison. At the time of my offense, I was 44 years of age,
had no criminal record as a juvenile or an adult, and was working three jobs—as
a laborer in a Kalamazoo plastics factory, a substitute teacher in the
Kalamazoo Public Schools, and a graduate assistant at Western Michigan
University where I was pursuing a Master’s degree in Fine Arts.
Let’s take a step back: On February
2, 1996, I was inducted into the Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society. Later that
spring, I purchased a home on a land contract in Woodland Park, a resort
community in Newaygo County. There, and in Kalamazoo, I was active working with
children and the elderly in my communities. I was also busy raising my own
children and grandchildren.
Upon my conviction, I was refused
re-enrollment into WMU’s graduate program. After much persistence, and with the
help of Arnie Johnston, then chairman of WMU’s English Department, I was
accepted back into the graduate program in 1999. A year later, I achieved a
master’s degree from Western Michigan University.
In 2001, I wrote a book of poetry,
“Episodes.” I followed up with three full-length plays and four one-acts. In
2003, I was accepted as a certified braillist by the Library of Congress. In
2005, I published my first novel, “The Pooka and the Paranormal.” Three years
later, I published a second novel, “The King of Pearl.” In 2010, I wrote a song
for my home town, “Marching As One,” which participants sang at the dedication
ceremony honoring Woodland Park as a Michigan historical site.
In 2013, I wrote my first
screenplay, “The King of Pearl,” adapted from my novel of the same name. Add to
that: I still own my home in Newaygo County and have kept the taxes paid on
that property (house and five lots) these past 17 years. Every spring, since my
incarceration, my mother, who lives two blocks from my home, has planted
petunia in the flowerbed beneath my front window.
(We are born innocent. From birth,
we chip away at that innocence—with our lies and profanities, drinking, sex,
etc. In our assaults upon it, innocence will hide from us, but it will never
abandon us. It is in the last breath we breathe.
We are all at the centers of our own
worlds, and each of us is spinning. On August 6, 1996, I spun out of control.
When I committed my crime—I killed Lillie Blue—I descended to the lowest place
a man can go. There was no innocence in sight, only shame. And lo these past 17
years, I have slowly walked back my days. I searched for my innocence, found
it, uncovered it, and nurtured it with prayers and good deeds. I reached out to
people in my family, my community, and around the world. I wrote songs to
uplift them, articles to enlighten them, and novels to entertain and inspire
them. In my prison community, where there are many hungry men, I tutored, and
listened, and encouraged. And with money
I earned, I cooked meals and fed over a thousand prisoners. In my prayers, I
have vowed that I would rather die than ever harm another human being.)
The sentencing judge advised me that
I would be eligible for parole in 2013. Mine is a sentence that is supposed to
end. Yet, It goes on and on, sustained by custodial parties who are uncompelled
to act out of reason, preferring rather to submit themselves to a punishment
regime that is out of touch with modern societies—even out of touch with more
progressive American states.
I have served my minimum sentence as
prescribed by the courts; I have paid my debt to society. I am 61 years of age.
I completed all R&GC recommendations. I followed all of the rules.
I am not a danger to society. I am a
father, a brother, a son. I have the skills set necessary to be a successful
parolee—family, home, job prospects, good health, and a strong community
spirit. Yet, parole board representative, Jayne Price, opened my April 22, 2013
hearing—before I had uttered a word—by flatly stating, “There is not much
chance of you getting a parole because you have not served enough time.” It was
the equivalent of a judge telling a defendant before his trial begins, “You’re
guilty, and headed for the gallows.” This is what the Michigan Parole Board
offered up as a “fair hearing.” It was something out of the Dark Ages.
(Even if Ms. Price had no intention
of being fair, in a “democratic society,” where a man’s life and the life of
his family is at stake, she might have offered up the pretense of fairness.)
The State of Michigan invests the
power of life and death in people who fail to understand a simple concept about
second-degree life: It is not meant to be a life sentence unless the
defendant/prisoner makes it so. A first-degree life means mandatory life. A
second-degree life does not. The tail of a second-degree lifer’s sentence is
life—similar to how 30 is the far end of a 15-30. On a 15-30, if a prisoner
acts a fool, he might have to do 20. If he acts a complete fool, he might have
to do 30. I did not act a fool at all. Unless they have something else against
me, the law clearly states—despite Ms. Price’s pronouncement –that 17 years is
enough to grant me a parole.
Judge Schma, who sentenced me to
life, said I have a chance to serve 15 years, plus two for the gun. It is
implied in his sentence that if the State wants to keep me longer, it can, but
it does not have to. What is not implied is whether the State has to have a
good reason to keep me longer. “More time” is not a reason. “More time” should
be the consequences once you’ve found a good reason. Jayne Price and her
cohorts could not find a good reason to keep me imprisoned, so they simply hit
me with the consequence.
Throughout my hearing, Ms. Price continued
to tell me how well I was doing—with my programs, my block reports, my work, my
behavior, etc. She even acknowledged that the law provides for my release after 15 years.
“But,” she adds in so many words, “you have not served enough time for me.” That
sounds like a personal matter. It has nothing to do with justice, or the law.
It is apparent that the Michigan Parole Board has embraced this fallacy: They
can turn paroleable life into mandatory life simply by ignoring the difference.
On April 24, 2013, two days after
that strange interview with Ms. Price, the Michigan Parole Board denied my
parole. They informed me that my next interview is scheduled for August 18,
2018. Nothing more can be expected by 2018, except that I will be five years
older and five years less able to support myself and my family.
(I had hoped that Ms. Price and the
Michigan Parole Board would free my children. But they appear as unconscious of
my babies and their needs as they are or the notion that “mercy seasons
justice.”)
Perhaps the parole board—the prison
system, itself—looks at me, a convicted felon, and only sees someone with
ready-made grips. No matter what I accomplish—no matter if I win a Pulitzer
Prize—they will point to my grips and smile at how easily they can continue to
hold onto me, though I have given them no reason to hold me, and every reason
to let me go.
Those grips be damned. They are not
meant to be there, anyway. They are plastered on by a system that has become
accustomed to taking harsh liberties with its prisoner population—liberties
against its own citizens that, if committed in other countries, would be called
“human rights abuses.”
America, you call yourself “The Land
of the Free,” yet you imprison more people—and for longer periods of time—than
any other nation on Earth. You big phony. You should be ashamed. It is time you
opened your gulags and let deserving man and women go home to their families.
Your prison system has become an embarrassment to democracies worldwide, and a
source of comfort to despots.
Today, I cease my participation in
this State’s praetorian incarceration of me. I end my bondage to the State of
Michigan on behalf of myself, my family, and all of the other state prisoners
and their families—men and women who have dutifully served their time as
prescribed by the courts, and are now being held beyond their out-dates by what
has become a bloated enterprise, operated out of cruelty and greed, dismissive
of Americans’ much-touted belief in second chances. I would rather die and feed
this Earth than willingly give another drop of blood to such a despotic regime.
(The slave of the antebellum South
was not just a slave to this master’s voice, he was a slave to life no matter
how depraved that life had become. That is why slavery lasted in this country
for over 250 years.
I am not a slave. Life means nothing
without freedom. I had a debt to pay. I paid it. Now, do the right thing and
free me, or you can let me die.)
I want to live as much as the next
man. But I cannot, with a clear conscience, continue to live in bondage once I
have dutifully earned my freedom. I have earned my freedom. I will not
let the remainder of me become fodder to sustain this corrupt prison industry.
Today, death does not scare me nearly so much as does the prospect of being
complicity in a State’s terror against its own poor, and its
poorly-represented.
From this day forward, I shall not
eat another morsel of food lest that food, itself, exist in a state of
liberation. Patrick Henry said to this nation during its bondage to the British
Empire, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” I concur.
- Larry Carter (May 18, 2013)
