Right to Life,
Charles Kareem Diggs
“…I was arrested in May 1976 and have been imprisoned for over 42 years for crimes I did not commit. I believe God can touch a human being anywhere on this earth … that God cares for all His creatures and will provide some solace and grace for us … the absence of love has indeed infected every area of life and its absence is expressed in the criminal injustice system more than anywhere else on the planet.”
Franz Jägerstätter Lives From the Grave –
RIGHT TO LIFE
I read the compelling life and story of Franz Jägerstätter in your newsletter “Martyrdom, August 9, 1943”. He as a young man, 36 years old, was executed giving his life for a belief that the Third Reich was morally and divinely wrong, and he would not kill in their name. He believed in the Right to Life. This created a desire in me to speak on Pennsylvania’s inability to recognize that the Right to Life must incorporate all persons with dignity, even prisoners.
In the PA prison system there are 5500 women and men serving what is better known as DBI (Death by Incarceration). There is no parole system, thus, each person is destined to die in prison or in an outside hospital that usually is unable to cure the prisoner’s illness, because in most cases it is far too late by the time they are afforded the proper humane treatment.
The majority of Lifers have children and other family members; they too are serving the Life sentence. The families of the persons murdered are…victims; they have to exist without their loved ones …
Literally, the prosecutor has been able to use the media and legislation to separate the common thread that binds all human beings. The defendant and his family have been put in the back of the bus when it concerns criminal justice issues. Whenever there are hearings for pretrial, trial, commutation, or par-don the deceased family is notified so they can have a voice in the matter. [The Lifer’s family is not notified.] … This separates a significant segment of the PA population. They too pay taxes as the deceased family does. However, there is no representation with power that is willing to change the imbalance in the system.
How did we get to this place in society that human beings are condemned until death? Did it happen suddenly or was it a systematic plan to imprison large numbers of citizens? The facts speak for themselves as they spoke in the time of Franz Jägerstätter:
Beginning in the early 1980’s presidential elections were lost or won based on a prisoner who committed a crime while on a weekend furlough. Each time this scenario was used the prisoner was an African American. In PA it was used in such an extreme way, the Board of Pardons [The BOP determines whether clemency should be recommended to the Governor for approval or denial] failed to even function for twenty years… The PA Constitution was amended by GOP Gov. Tom Ridge and the legislature and adopted by the senate. A crime victim was added to the commutation board. They decided that a unanimous vote of 5 was needed for commutation. Prior to the amendment a vote of 3 was needed, and Lifers were allowed to have the Governor
review the recommendation. Another burden was that three members had to vote for a merit hearing…. [The current PA Board of Pardons is comprised of: Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Corrections Expert, Psychiatrist, Victim Representative.]
Three BOP appointees are picked and approved by the legislatures–in private meetings. This system does not allow a fair process to function. The cards are already written– every 8 years there may be two or three lifers commuted. This means they will be on Life time parole – this system represents the entire nation.
Prior to these changes the states usually paroled Lifers after 15 years or before. The maximum amount of time a person would serve on a life sentence was on average 27 years – that was the high end…It was a custom and tradition in America that if you kept your nose clean, as they say, changed, educated yourself, gained a trade, and did not commit violent acts in prison; you had an opportunity to show you have redeemed yourself to be trusted in society again.
The drug war that was falsely waged by the government and the frightening tactics used on the evening news and daily papers created such a fear, that rural townships, small communities with no violent crime, began putting bars across their windows, buying guns out of fear. They all saw this ‘dark ugly criminal’ as a threat to their peace and sanity.
The images motivated law enforcement agencies to expand their job security at the expense of citizen’s tax dollars and sanity. Economical and racial prejudice once again were used to justify denying elderly sick rehabilitated women and men from ever being released from prison. The death rate at Graterford in one month was so high the prisoners were having intense conversations about the life and destiny of the population. We began to question why is it necessary to keep dying persons in prison. To die? The compassionate release rarely works. When it does work, the Lifer or non-Lifer dies on the way home while in the ambulance. In fact a few years ago a brother who was returned to prison for a parole violation had cancer. He was not given the best treatment and needed to be released. A decent, caring attorney contacted the family and started the complex paper work to have the person released; known as Compassionate Release. The process was so exhausting and even when the sister came to pick her brother up they could not release him until the institution was able to find the proper scissors to cut off his wrist band. That took a few hours while the man is dying by the second. He died the next day. This is just an example of a system that denies the right to life. . ….
Women have been routinely unable to obtain commutation at any noticeable rate even when Commutation was a viable source of meaningful hope. An important element that has been ignored is there are no persons from the communities representative of the thousands of families affected by the process on the BOP…
There are at least 300 men and women who have over 40 years in prison. The population of Lifers over 50 years of age is significantly troubling because they have served decades in prison. They pose no threat to any human being. To continue a system that does not afford a fair process for parole is denial of the Right to Life. The question could be made well if they took a Life why shouldn’t they be deprived of life? Good question and I will give a fair and honest answer.
First, out of the 5500 Lifers, a percentage of these women and men never killed anyone. Some of the Lifers had nothing to do with another defendant shooting the deceased. In some cases the actual shooter made a deal with the prosecutor, and was given a 5 to 10 year sentence or a 10 to 20 year sentence. These deal makers are home…and are back in society. The person who never killed any-one remains in prison after more than 20, 30 40 years behind bars. Commutation has yet to commute these human beings… … … …
Charles Kareem Diggs
Kareem can receive mail at: Smart Communications PA doc AK7945 SCI Phoenix
P.O. Box 33028, St Petersburg, FL
Eliminate 2nd Degree Felony Murder Law (SB 293) in PA
See: An accomplice will die in prison while the killer goes free: The strange justice of PA felony-murder law
Inquirer, Samantha Melamed, 2.16.18
December 2018
