Tag Archive | Prison

Celebrating the Release of Marvin Haynes—with Angry Joy

Celebrating the Release of Marvin Haynes—with Angry Joy
David R. Weiss – December 8, 2023

This morning around 11am, Marvin Hayes walked out of Stillwater Prison a free man. After nearly twenty years of wrongful imprisonment.

Marvin had steadfastly maintained his innocence from the start, and at an evidentiary hearing in November, he and his attorney were able to present evidence demonstrating that his constitutional right to a fair trial in 2005 was violated, particularly in the prosecution’s reliance on notoriously unreliable eyewitness identification.

Marvin Haynes on the steps of the Stillwater prison – a free man

Indeed, it’s almost more accurate to say that the State, in its fervor to convict Marvin, set aside eyewitness identification to secure a guilty verdict. The single eyewitness to the murder described the subject as an adult black man … about 6 feet tall … thin build, weighing 180 pounds … with close-cropped hair. Haynes, meanwhile, was a 16-year teenager … five feet, seven inches tall … weighing 130 pounds … with a long afro. But police substituted a two-year-old photo of Marvin (with short hair), and after twice picking out someone other than Marvin, the eyewitness finally selected the man police wanted to put behind bars. There were other issues as well: no physical evidence—neither DNA nor fingerprints—and no video. Just one eyewitness who needed to be guided to pin a crime on an innocent black teenager.

It’s hard to believe it happened in the first place. Harder still that it took almost twenty years for the State to acknowledge and right this wrong. Except, this is the “logic,” NO, the ILLOGIC that drives the evil of white supremacy culture. It empowers police, prosecutors, and the courts to trample the truth and put a black man—in this case, just a kid!—behind bars under the false pretense of justice.

Some will see in today’s development, which is, of course, cause for joy, an affirmation of the claim, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But I want to press back on that a bit. The simple phrase is a sound bite that can too easily gives false hope. As though Marvin Haynes’ freedom was a foregone conclusion all along; we just needed to wait patiently for the universe to sort things out. But Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t utter those words from a spot on the sidelines of history. He invoked them from the midst of the messy fray of working tirelessly for justice himself.

I happen to believe that the universe does hunger for justice. That in ways we can never quite grasp (we use words like karma, grace, justice, and balance to reach toward an ineffable truth), the thrust of the universe opens toward complexity, freedom, agency, and purpose. But it guarantees nothing. It is we—who experience freedom, exercise agency, and pursue purpose—it is we who make the moral universe. Or fail to.

Ask Marvin Haynes—or his sister, Marvina—how interested the “justice system” was in working for justice in Marvin’s case. They (and all those who have been in solidarity with them across the years of this struggle) were, from first to last, bending the arc in the dark. Convinced of the truth. Convinced, too, that the universe was open to that truth—even hungry for it—and determined to not allow the forces of injustice to have the final word.

Marvin’s release today does NOT prove that the system works, albeit slowly. It proves that human beings, allied in deep solidarity with one another and with the call of justice—can (at times) overwhelm the resistance of the system itself. That “at times” is a dreadful but necessary qualifier. Even if the universe longs for justice, only those beings with freedom and agency (like us!) can pursue it. The universe’s longing rests on us. And there are forces arrayed against us, many of them woven into systems that prize power over justice. We won’t win every time. But today we did. And that is cause for joy.

But one last thing should be said. Today is cause for angry joy.

The “justice” awarded to Marvin today, egregiously late though it was, ought not be diminished. That’s the joy. At age 36 he has (hopefully!) years ahead of him to enjoy his freedom. But don’t imagine that his release somehow belatedly “rights a wrong”; how do you pretend that after having willfully stolen 19 years of a man’s life, there’s any way to right that? That’s the anger—or at least the tip of it. Today is a day for joy. Marvin Haynes is home at long last. But I suggest you save a little room for anger, as well. For several reasons.

After having been incarcerated for 19 years, Marvin’s freedom will be framed by the compounded trauma of those years. Having been denied justice for so long, having had so many years of his life stolen (the very years he should’ve had the opportunity to fashion an identity for himself), and having been subjected to conditions in prison designed to break a man’s spirit and misshape his soul. Most of us can feel the bright smile on his face today, but few of us can understand the long years of dehumanizing energy he’s been subjected to.

Marvin’s universe was bent toward injustice against his will for a couple decades. No bright smile on a Monday morning is going to undo that. So, let there be some anger alongside the joy to feed the determination to accompany Marvin through the hard work of reclaiming a life on the outside. The State will want to wring its hands a few times, maybe write out a check to Marvin, and then say, “our work here is done.” And maybe it is. Given that most of the State’s work has been to harm Marvin, maybe it’s best for the State to step aside. But the rest of us dare not.

As much as Marvin may have needed us to help bend the arc toward his freedom, he will need even more help now to sustain the freedom he’s been granted. Because owning that freedom will involve healing from all the harm that’s been done “in the name of justice.” That’s where angry joy enters—because it recognizes that today’s jubilation is only the first step in a journey toward freedom that remains arduous and fraught.

But also, angry joy because there are so many others whose stories differ from Marvin’s only in the details. Philip Vance, for instance. I’ve written about Philip’s story elsewhere; he is also a man whose innocence could not protect him from wrongful imprisonment for twenty years—and counting.

Philip will no doubt rejoice in today’s news—when word of it reaches him where he sits in solitary confinement at same prison that Marvin walked out of earlier today. See, Philip was sentenced to solitary (for 180 days!) as retribution for his role in a peaceful protest against inhumane conditions in the prison. Ironically, the use of extended solitary confinement is itself viewed as inhumane by the United Nations, and the terms of Philip’s current placement in solitary appear to openly contradict Minnesota law. But, again, this is the “logic,” NO, the ILLOGIC that drives the evil of white supremacy culture. In fact, I suspect the severity of Philip’s placement is a direct result of the energy he’s invested in recent months in asserting his innocence.

Well, one action of angry joy that you can take right now—one fine way to celebrate Marvin’s freedom while acknowledging that it is not nearly enough, is to sign this petition calling for Philip’s release from solitary. Because this, too, is bending the arc in the dark. And, honestly, it’s only in the dark (with no guarantee and through our tireless efforts) that the arc ever bends.

I am filled with angry joy at Marvin’s release. Overjoyed he is finally home. Angry at the healing he has yet to do. And angry for those not yet free. I hope you are, too. (Now, sign that petition! Thanks!)

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, doing “public theology” around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, diversity, and peace. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Philip Vance: Freedom is Calling

Jul1

Philip Vance: Freedom is Calling
David R. Weiss – July 1, 2023

Find the website with further information about Philip’s case HERE.

After twenty years in prison, it’s time for Philip Vance to be free.

Actually, almost two decades ago it was time for Philip Vance to be free. He’s in prison for a murder he had nothing to do with. He shouldn’t have been arrested for it, tried for it, sentenced for it, let alone imprisoned for it. The whole thing has been a grotesque miscarriage of justice—except even those words fall short of describing what it’s meant for Philip to have been torn from his family and freedom for all those years. “Miscarriage of justice” doesn’t even come close.

Worse, despite its name, the “justice system” is set-up to protect convictions—even if wrongly decided—rather than pursue justice for human beings. Occasionally wrongful convictions do get overturned, but only with great effort and good fortune. So far, despite the great efforts of many (not least Philip himself!), good fortune hasn’t yet visited Philip Vance. That’s not entirely true. Philip would tell you he’s been blessed in many ways. But those blessings don’t yet include freedom. This is his story.

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Shortly before Christmas 2002, a South St. Paul store clerk, Khaled Al-Bakri, was shot and killed during an apparent robbery. That much is clear. And criminal. Someone killed Al-Bakri. Witnesses reported seeing two persons fleeing the scene, but they were wearing masks; neither their faces, nor even their skin color was seen.

Soon after this Philip Vance was identified as a primary suspect in the case by the Minnesota Gang Strike Force. He was subsequently charged with murder in March 2004, found guilty by a jury in September 2004, and sentenced to life in prison in October 2004. Today, he’s serving that sentence at the Stillwater Minnesota Correctional Facility.

Philip has asserted his innocence vigorously from Day One … and for the next 7400+ days since then. Unwaveringly. He was so much innocent that he actively cooperated when police initially questioned him. Why wouldn’t he? He had nothing to hide. Indeed, he had an alibi: he was with a friend at her place that evening—a fact she confirmed to police during the investigation. (More recently, cell phone records have proven that she used Philip’s phone to call her sister that night.) And unflinchingly. He was so much innocent that he refused to accept any plea deal. Why would he plead to a lesser charge? That would be to acknowledge even a lesser guilt that was never his—at all. Indeed, at the trial there was no physical evidence that linked him to the crime. No gun. No fingerprints. No footprints. No DNA. No tire tracks. No eyewitness identification. No physical evidence at all.

But somehow neither his innocence nor his persistent assertion of it, neither his alibi nor the complete absence of physical evidence carried the day. How did an “enthusiastically” innocent young man wind up sentenced to life in prison for a crime that he swears—for seven-thousand-four-hundred days and counting—he had nothing to do with?

The uncomfortably short answer is that Philip Vance found himself caught in a tangle of lies—none of them his own—all of them orchestrated by the Minnesota Gang Strike Force (renamed the Metro Gang Strike Force in 2005), a police unit comprised of officers from across the metro area. If the name of that unit rings a bell, it’s likely because it was disbanded in disgrace in 2008, after a state panel found it was riddled with corruption and misconduct. But in 2003-2004, during the investigation of Al-Bakri’s murder and the subsequent prosecution of Philip Vance, the Strike Force was still in full-out rogue mode, featuring “high-performing” officers determined to get results by any means necessary.

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In Philip’s case, the Strike Force first pressured an outside informant to set up Philip so they could arrest him on an unrelated gun charge (the gun he sold was not the weapon used to kill Al-Bakri). Police had this informant wear a wire; then claimed she had elicited a confession from Philip. But that recording was later described by police as having such poor audio that it was unintelligible; in fact, it was never produced—perhaps it was never even made. In any case, that informant later recanted her testimony, alleging she was told by police to make false statements about Philip, which she did to avoid being brought up on charges herself related to her own chemical dependency.

Then, once he was in jail, the Strike Force bribed and threatened six jailhouse informants to testify against Philip. Some were offered reduced sentences of their own, others financial rewards; in at least one case officers threatened to go after an informant’s brother if he refused to cooperate. Ultimately, all six implicated Philip in the murder.

It should have been a red flag from the start. By now it’s well-documented that using jailhouse informants to secure convictions is so problematic as to be immoral. As of 2020, at least 197 wrongful convictions (nationwide) have been overturned because of issues with such testimony. In fact, a report by a Harvard professor specializing in this area concludes that the use of multiple jailhouse informants (as in Philip’s case) ought to immediately call into question their reliability. Unlike corroborating testimony from multiple “disinterested witness,” jailhouse informants have an inherent incentive to bargain their words against another inmate to secure better deals for themselves. Moreover, they’re likely to collaborate (align their stories) in jail to make their testimony as “valuable” to police as possible, regardless of its connection to the truth.

However—lest we presume this suggests jailhouse informants lack a moral compass, it’s important to remember incarcerated persons exist in a matrix of oppression, usually with roots running deep into their past, present, and future. The choices they make are shaped by forces unknown to many of us but driven also by their own desire to be free. Although these persons are hardly saints, the real villains in this scenario are the officers who leverage power and vulnerability to achieve goals quite disconnected from justice.

As a result, between pressure from Strike Force officers and informants’ own self-interest, a whole series of crafted falsehoods were joined to a set of innuendos (circumstantial evidence suggestive of nothing except when framed by lies) to convince a jury of Philip’s guilt.

How do we know this? One of the truths about lies is that they inevitably unravel. Unfortunately for Philip, that unraveling didn’t begin until after he was sent to prison. But all told, at least eight of those whose testimony was used to convict Philip Vance have since signed affidavits recanting that testimony—admitting that it was false and made at the behest of Strike Force officers intent on securing a conviction regardless of guilt—or, in Philip’s case, innocence.

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That alibi Philip provided? It was never shared with the jury; Philip’s friend was never called to testify. In fact, the prosecutor told the jury that Philip could not account for his whereabouts the night of the murder—despite police having confirmed his alibi. And the only witness who was (momentarily) in the store at the time of the shooting—she had just entered the store and backed out when she realized a robbery was in progress—besides seeing two persons, fully masked, of unknown skin color, fleeing—also described hearing the person who shot Al-Bakri shouting to his accomplice in a language she knew was not English and believed was Spanish. This also was never shared with the jury.

Other witness testimony has also been called into question. And the credibility of the Strike Force’s integrity has been shattered. More to the point, because a human life is at stake, the credibility of Philip Vance’s conviction is in shreds. So, of course, the system is quick to correct itself in such cases, right? WRONG. We want to believe that courts administer justice. And I suppose sometimes they do. (Although in an adversarial- and punitive-based legal system, whatever justice is rendered is thin at best.) But when they administer injustice, they are loathe to acknowledge that. The system is designed to cover its own mistakes whenever possible, by prizing procedure above all else. Including truth.

Despite filing multiple appeals seeking to have his conviction reversed, each appeal has been denied, largely for procedural reasons. Meaning that none of these courts has seriously engaged Philip’s claim of a wrongful conviction. None of them has asked the question, “Was justice done to this man?” They’ve been content to inquire only, “Were the i’s properly dotted? Were the t’s correctly crossed?” Never mind whether those dotted i’s and crossed t’s … put an innocent man away—for life.

Finally, how innocent is Philip Vance? Well, character doesn’t “prove” innocence; it really only proves character. But Philip Vance’s character is, by now, beyond question. Sent away from children, other family, and friends for life, Philip had every reason to grant rage and despair free rein in his soul. Instead, he’s chosen education, exercise, personal improvement, and service to others (mentoring fellow inmates) as his purpose while behind bars—some of the blessings he acknowledges. For a man 7400+ days into proclaiming his innocence, Philip Vance’s character adds one more bit of compelling evidence. If it doesn’t prove his innocence, it ought at least to compel someone to hear him out.

In 2004 an innocent man was put away—for life. But today freedom is calling. Sometimes, in the still of the night in his prison cell, Philip Vance can almost hear it calling his name. Let’s hope that one day soon, it does.

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PLEASE SHARE THIS POST. Philip and a team of his supporters have been working diligently and passionately to right this injustice and secure Philip’s freedom. Thus far, to no avail. It’s time for Philip’s story to become WIDELY known. At some point Philip and his team may ask more of you. Right now they’re asking you to learn his story and share it. You can share this post by its URL or as a pdf file. You can print out and post this flyer at your favorite coffee shop, bookstore, water cooler, or other community place. The flyer includes a QR code that takes people to the pdf of this post. PLEASE AMPLIFY PHILIP’S STORY.

FREEDOM IS CALLING

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David Weiss is a a Twin Cities-based writer, activist, theologian, and poet, doing “public theology” around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, diversity, and peace. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in writing Community Supported Theology at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

This essay relies heavily—and gratefully—on the “Vance Research Narrative” drafted by the University of St. Thomas Legal Services Clinic and revised June 21, 2021; authors: Kathryn Quinlan, Sophia Maietta, Christiane Dos Santos, Sara Hunemiller.

Abolition! – Because Words Matter

Feb15

Abolition! – Because Words Matter
David R. Weiss – February 15, 2023

[I’m not looking to pick a fight here, least of all with my friends on the left. I’m just grasping for words to say something that strikes me as absolutely essential … and yet almost unimaginable for most of us. Plus, these are ongoing reflections, fed in part by an Abolition reflection group I’m in right now. I will have more to say.]

During the summer of 2020 I rather unexpectedly became an aspiring abolitionist. Initially, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by the police, I was empathetic toward, but also uneasy with calls for Abolition or to Defund the Police. I sympathized with the rage (although, for a white man, that sympathy admittingly came cheap), even as I wrestled with the choice of words.

Image: Moon Palace Books, Minneapolis, June 2020
Renoir Gaither/ Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Then two things happened. No, three.

First, my conservative friends began to openly mock these calls in comments that ranged from “merely” dismissive to thinly veiled racism. Second, even my liberal friends began to characterize the phrases as unrealistic and counterproductive.

Third, I began to read abolitionist writers for myself. They told the history of policing and incarceration and explained how that history was intertwined—by intent and design—with the oppression and outright decimation of black communities. They called for a future without police or prisons, in part because they knew that a future with them was unlivable for their communities. But also, because in their longing for a world in which the well-being of their communities (of all communities, really) was truly centered, there was no place for police or prisons.

Not that they assumed there would be no more need for public safety. No, even in the society they envision, public safety needs are still real and “still” met. (Indeed, they would assert that it is only in a world without police or prisons that public safety needs are actually met.) Abolitionists argue that in our present society, “public safety” is, in fact, the management through coercive force of the inevitable conditions of inequity and impoverishment created by white supremacy. (Go back and read that sentence again. In fact, write it out for yourself. Ten times.)

Still, if “Abolition” isn’t a rallying cry that captures the general public’s imagination, shouldn’t the movement, if only for sake of strategic appeal, seek a more inviting phrase, a more moderate “brand”? I can admit that I understand that position. And I can also say, NO.

True, an abolitionist vision reaches far beyond simply dissolving police forces and closing prisons. So, literally, “abolition”—the erasure of the police-prison system—is not the whole of it. But the honest and essential bottom line is that abolition does not settle for less than this. Any future without abolition is a false future. In that sense, even though not the whole of that future, abolition is the goal.

A simple example helps explains why. When a police officer’s knee is on a black man’s neck, the gasping cry, “I can’t breathe,” is not an invitation to abstract civil discourse about police reform. It is an urgent call to remove the knee.

For those of us who live largely (almost entirely) insulated from both the legacy and the immediacy of police violence or incarceration, every discussion of policing or prisons IS abstract. But when you live and move and breathe in black communities—in black skin—every genuine conversation about policing and prisons BEGINS with the knee of your neck. And that’s true whether it’s an actual knee or a whole racist system that functions like a knee over a lifetime. Over lifetimes.

Racism has proven its ability to reinvent itself time and again, from slavery to Jim Crow to segregation to redlining to criminalized poverty and mass incarceration. And the history of police violence against communities of color has been uninterrupted and demonstrably unreformable. To pretend that another round of proposed reforms is going to truly change anything is to ignore the character of the system itself. IT IS THE KNEE.

This isn’t about attacking the character of individual police officers, although there are surely more officers than we’d like to admit for whom the badge is about racialized power. The harder truth, however, is that, from its inception, policing has been about “keeping the peace” in a world made unequal through racialized injustice. Policing was conceived to preserve safety for the haves by enforcing laws on the have nots, whose desperate living conditions predictably fomented unrest.

It doesn’t matter that more “legitimate” roles have been added into policing over the years. So long as the conditions of racialized inequity have not been addressed, the core function of police and prisons in our society continues to be the preservation of order by force on a population that is, by design, kept desperate. When that knee has been—and continues to be—on the neck of your communal life nonstop for generations, there are no added roles that can convey legitimacy. The entire system needs to be abolished so that something wholly new can be brought forth.

But—and this is where it becomes untenable for most white people—abolition is emergent. It will not suddenly appear as a finished project. Rather, it will unfold across years. It will necessarily involve equitable education, accessible housing, living wage and career-growth job opportunities, fully funded healthcare, tending to generational trauma, reparations for past injustice, restorative justice practices for the present, and more. All of that is fundamental to an abolitionist vision. Because all of it is critical to fostering the well-being of communities of color. (It’s critical to the well-being of all communities, but it’s in communities of color that these conditions have been systemically and intentionally suppressed.)

By investing proactively in these things, we work toward eliminating the desperation that seeds the harm that can become crime in communities. Tragically—foolishly and reprehensibly—we have spent generations investing in the very desperation that serves to “justify” police and prison. We have been feverishly busy making a just humane society harder to achieve. Abolition calls on us to deploy the wealth of our public funds toward the flourishing of communities rather than their policing. In doing this we create the conditions where we can finally discover together how to address the remaining challenges of our civic life in nonviolent ways.

Is this an idyllic vision? Yes. And No. It is, ultimately, merely honest about the linkage between injustice and social unrest—and simply aspirational enough to believe we can do better. Besides which our current vision is racist, punitive, and a purposeful failure compared to other societies.

Abolition is not simply about the erasure of police and prisons. It is also and ultimately about the wellbeing of communities, but to second-guess the cry of abolition is, in fact, to change the subject entirely. More than absence? Yes. But less than that? NO.

To critique the cry for abolition, to say Republicans and the general public will never go for that (and therefore Democrats shouldn’t pursue it either) is not only to acknowledge how entrenched racialized inequity is in our society, it is to make common cause with injustice itself. Because no half-measures will suffice. Nothing less than the full-scale dismantling of police and prisons will allow for communal public safety that is truly just.

We dare not set the bounds of hope for those persistently imperiled by racism according to the comfort level of those who benefit (willingly, knowingly, or otherwise) from their peril. (Read that sentence again. It’s dense, but every phrase matters.) To limit our aspirations, our support, our solidarity to what strikes us as realistic is to be awkwardly, implicitly, undeniably in solidarity with the very forces that limit the imagination of justice.

Words matter. So, for all that it means, from first steps to final realization: Abolition! Now.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, doing “public theology” around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, diversity, and peace. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in writing Community SupportedTheology at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.