The long way home: Catching up to Davon Acklin.

Some of you may recall Davon Acklin, the Arizona state prisoner who let us use him as a poster child when his mom, Julie, was fighting to get him treatment for Hepatitis C. I corresponded with him for a year while he was in Tucson prison, and had the wonderful experience of greeting him with his family as he was freed this spring. Then my own life fell apart and we lost touch.

Today I saw Davon for the first time since the day he headed home. Sadly, it was to visit him at the 4th Avenue Jail. He's facing at least four felony charges, and - needless to say - violated his probation. He's going away for a long time this time; it may be more than ten years before we see him walk free again...except that he was once a free man in prison. I keep telling myself that, hoping that wherever he lands he can find himself again - what's he's been wearing lately are the worst kind of chains, anyway.

I still don't know just what happened over the course of the past five months, and will leave that story for him to tell when he's ready. I can say, though, that when I saw Davon today he was calm, rational, and appropriately remorseful for hurting those who love and believed in him. He reports that he's getting his psych meds, at least; the place is just a miserable place to be, and he's sick as a dog right now. I suspect he's going through withdrawal. He denied being suicidal, expressed appreciation for those who have tried to help him, and apologized "for being such a fuck-up". I tried to reaffirm that some folks still haven't bailed on him, and that his mom isn't about to give up.

Despite his effort to begin to make amends, I don't think Davon has any idea of how badly he really hurt people this time - I'm figuring out just how to tell him, though. The hurting from this binge has only just begun, too. He didn't just break Julie's heart and devastate his sister, he invited violence into his family's home that may not leave with him when he goes. He compromised the fight to overcome all the barriers to getting Hep C treatment for people with psychiatric disorders and addictions by giving the state a reason to say "I told you so." He may lose his own battle to get interferon now. His mother may well have to recover his body from prison, or see him buried there.

Davon is not responsible for having a mental illness, or even for being an addict any more so than if he had diabetes. He is responsible for his recovery, though, and made decisions when he was well that compromised his ability to make good choices in a very short period of time. Whether or not he was competent at the time he committed the crimes he's accused of is for him and the courts to work out - we didn't discuss any of that. Today he seems to be in his right mind, though - and almost relieved at the prospect of going back to prison. I think he copped out on us all early on, frankly, and I'm mad as hell at him. I'm also angry that I wasn't able to be there for him when he came home myself, though. There were a lot of things I had wanted to share with him, and before I knew it he was gone again. I know it's my egocentricity that makes me think I might have changed this outcome had I been more present for him upon his release; I wish I had been, though.

I never really expected a fairy tale ending to Davon's relationship with the criminal justice system. He grew up in it - he even accidentally referred to returning to prison as going "home". There's absolutely no meaningful treatment or rehab in prison for the vast majority of dually-diagnosed young men like Davon - or for the women, for that matter. He had a lot of good community support - the probation department was awesome, I guess - but few new tools for coping with stress and expectations when he got out. That's not to excuse him from what he needs to own here, but that's the way it is for far too many prisoners I see who have cycled through the system more than once, so I think there's more at work than just Davon's pathology here.

This isn't the end of this young man's story or his struggle to keep from succumbing to either despair or Hep C - nor is his life yet over. In recovery from addictive disorders - especially for those with mental illness as well - relapse is common, and is often so much worse than before because one has to be sicker in order to go back into denial. But Davon doesn't necessarily forget what he learned before - he matured once, and can continue in that direction wherever he lands. Even in prison he can be a positive influence in the lives of others, if he's given the right support so he's able to make informed and capable decisions. Psychiatric disability or not - in prison or at home - Davon can still choose what kind of human being to be. Only when he surrenders that will I believe he's really lost his freedom.

Anyway, I'll let you know when he moves, but will otherwise be giving Davon and his family a break from my blogs while they sort things out. If you've been a correspondent of his, I think it would help him to know that even in back prison he's accountable to his fellow beings for his behavior and commitments. You can trust his mom and I to kick his ass over this, so to speak, but feel free to do so as well if you've been hurt, too. Just try to keep a door open for him if you can; he should be safe, but he really doesn't deserve exile. He needs to make amends and reconcile with not only his family but the community that supported him in order to grow and reduce the chances of this happening again.

Summer Solstice 2011
Firehouse Gallery and Cafe'
Phoenix, AZ

And the World Changed: Mass Clemency for Christmas.

I'm taking Davon Acklin's family to prison today to see him for Christmas and may not be blogging much until tomorrow. Will thus leave you all with the wise words of another to contemplate and dream on: a marvelous holiday essay for all the prisoners and their loved ones out there, printed last year in the Huffington Post...


Blessings to all. Be safe and well this day.


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What I Want For Christmas: Mass Clemency

Jacob M. Appel
Bioethicist and medical historian
Posted: December 23, 2009 09:41 PM


The United States Constitution and the laws of most states permit the President and governors to issue pardons and commutations, a prerogative frequently exercised during the winter holiday season. Unfortunately, with a few laudable exceptions, our chief executives have displayed considerable stinginess--and even outright political cowardice--in exercising this remarkable power.


President George W. Bush drew criticism from liberals for only pardoning 189 individuals and commuting 11 prison sentences during his eight years in office, but Bill Clinton cut short a merely marginally better 61 prison terms and pardoned only 396 convicts. Most of those pardoned each year have committed small-stakes crimes in the distant past such as selling bootleg whiskey or passing bad checks. Others, like Dan Rostenkowski and George Steinbrenner, are politically well-connected. It often seems that the principal purpose of these rare reprieves, much like the pardoning of a Thanksgiving Day turkey, is to make the pardoning politicians appear generous and affable to the electorate.


Yet with the United States now boasting the highest incarceration rate in the world -- more than 1 in every 100 Americans in currently behind bars -- our nation is long overdue for a mass clemency of non-violent felons and those unlikely to re-offend. Such a collective pardon and commutation would reunite hundreds of thousands of families, save billions of dollars in incarceration costs, and might foster a national spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation.


Few American politicians have dared to issue mass clemencies in the past. Andrew Johnson's grant of amnesty to former Confederate soldiers and Jimmy Carter's pardon of Vietnam-era draft evaders are likely the two largest acts of blanket forgiveness -- and both helped to heal our national wounds after periods of great division. Former New Mexico Governor Toney Anaya and ex-Illinois Governor George Ryan both deserve credit for commuting all of their state's death sentences to life terms. However, our current political leaders -- in both parties -- far more often appear afraid to ask for broad or bold clemencies.


John McCain's drive to secure a pardon for African-American boxer Jack Johnson -- convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act for his relationship with a white woman -- embodies this problem. Don't misunderstand me: I am all for pardoning Johnson, and Ethel Rosenberg, and Sacco & Vanzetti, and righting as many of the moral miscarriages of history as possible. However, I would much rather free the thousands of non-violent offenders serving long sentences under the draconian Rockefeller drug laws in New York State. So here's my Christmas wish: Each chief executive should order a special panel to determine, as quickly as possible, which prisoners either have a history of extreme violence or pose a high risk of re-offending. Those meeting neither criteria should be transitioned home as quickly as possible.


The advantage of a mass clemency is that it can be framed in terms of social policy and a spirit of charity, rather than the merits of any specific incident. That is not to say that there are not thousands of individual cases worthy of attention. In Michigan, for example, Shontelle Cavanaugh has now gone nearly five years without a trial for smothering her infant during a psychotic break -- a calamity compounded when the local prosecutor withheld video footage of Cavanaugh at the height of her psychosis. Governor Granholm could order this unfortunate woman's release. And there is the tragic case of Michelle Collette in Massachusetts, whose own trial judge blasted the severity of her seven-year sentence for possession of 14 to 28 grams of illicit oxycodone -- an injustice that could be rectified by Governor Patrick. But by focusing on these individual cases, as compelling and heart-wrenching as they may be, one risks losing sight of the greater cruelty of denying human beings liberty long after they pose any meaningful threat to society.


An individual pardon focuses on the nature of the crime. A mass pardon allows us to transcend questions of right and wrong. Unlike an individual grant of clemency, which often suggests that a miscarriage of justice has occurred, a mass clemency avoids the controversial issue of whether justice has been served and focuses on the question of whether it furthers any ethical purpose to perpetuate the punishment. One could simultaneously pardon Scooter Libby and all of the undocumented immigrants detained on identity-fraud charges while still avoiding the political hot potato of endorsing their specific conduct.


While an individual pardon may appear to be a slight to crime victims, who also merit our recognition and empathy, a collective pardon does not mitigate the respect that we should accord these victims' suffering. Moreover, a one-time mass clemency does not undermine the deterrent effect of stiff criminal penalties, because no potential offender is ever going to break the law in the hope that a second, future mass clemency will free him if he is arrested.


One of the glaring -- yet too often overlooked -- failings of contemporary America is that we have become a nation obsessed with justice and retribution. We claim to be The Land of the Free, yet we have lost sight of what it means to be imprisoned: denied liberty and access to one's family, subjected to isolation and violence and unspeakable boredom. We have come to believe, in the most pernicious way, that people should get what they deserve. What a sea change it might be in our public discourse and our civic life if we focused instead upon mercy and forgiveness. A merciful and forgiving culture might find itself with less anger, less social disruption, and even less crime. If we liberated only half of our prisoners, we could spend the billions of dollars saved educating children, or providing substance-abuse treatment to addicts, or training mental health workers -- breaking the cycle of neglect that sets future prisoners on their initial trajectory toward misconduct.


I am not naive enough to believe that all of our prisoners should be freed. Some individuals are truly unfit for reintegration into society. No reasonable person would argue that Charles Manson or Scott Roeder or admitted Al Qaeda terrorists should be sent home for the holidays. Fortunately, the majority of our more than two million prisoners are not fanatics and sociopaths. Many are good people who have exercised poor judgment. They have the same hopes and dreams as ordinary, free Americans, but they now squander their lives behind bars because our prison-industrial complex has gone haywire. They are, in short, the meek and wretched who the Biblical Jesus -- whether literal or figurative -- would want us to remember in our holiday prayers.


Will the White House read this column and decide upon a mass clemency? Unlikely. Such a bold step might make President Obama truly worthy of his Nobel Prize, and win him the praise of history, but political leaders of all stripes think in terms of poll numbers. I suspect that a mass clemency could be sold to the American public -- particularly as more and more Americans find their own loved ones imprisoned -- but I understand that to attempt such a courageous step requires a leap of considerable faith. I am more optimistic that, if enough people clamor for a mass clemency, one inspired state governor -- possibly a lame-duck chief executive without a political future -- will consider such a dramatic and compassionate act. If that happens, and the social order does not crumble, other political leaders may have the courage to follow. In the interim, I can only hope that the government lawyers assembling last-minute pardons lists, possibly as I write this, remember that each name they add to their clemency register is another flesh-and-blood human being who will be able to spent the Christmas holiday with his or her family.

from the Syracuse Cultural Workers

Arizona: Mercy, Mercy Me...

Davon's clemency board hearing was yesterday - the decision to turn him down was clearly made before we walked into the room, however. The chair made only passing reference to the thick stack of mail that had arrived in support of Davon's application, and cut me off when I was speaking on his behalf. He made a special point of reading things into the record to justify their determination against him. The county attorney's office can be expected to oppose such applications, but they went out of their way, it seems, to damn him - which was precisely what the board needed and asked for. Not that I'm accusing them of any impropriety - I'm sure they did what they felt was right - just as I'm doing. We just come from different places, and they don't know Davon like I do. As evidenced by their decision yesterday, They don't know him at all.


Pardons in Arizona have nothing to do with mercy or grace, by the way - or even justice for that matter, even when sincere people try to deliver it. Look at what our good governor did to Bill Macumber, the innocent man who has already spent 35 years in prison for murder and may well die there. Convinced beyond any doubt that his conviction was based on perjured testimony and manufactured evidence, the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency unanimously recommended him for a full pardon, which would have gone into effect if Brewer had simply left it alone for 90 days. Instead she quashed it, in the interest of her kind of "justice". Affirming Bill's innocence would have implied his ex-wife's guilt. As she worked for the Maricopa County Sheriff's office at the time she framed him, I suspect Brewer was doing someone with history there a favor. But what do I know?



Sadly, despite his story saturating the media across the country before November 2, the voters in Arizona elected that woman anyway.



As for Davon: the outcome of his hearing was no surprise, really - probably least of all to him - but it was still a disappointment; his little sister left the room abruptly in tears. We did, however, raise awareness about the prosecution of the seriously, mentally ill for their symptoms rather than their criminality, and built a network for prisoners with Hep C and their families. We also entered our objections to the prison industrial complex into the public record (that was the part I think they didn't want to hear). One of our legislators even turned out to corroborate Davon's mom's assertion that Arizona's prisoners aren't getting the medical care they need in there - and that came from a self-described "conservative Republican". I suspect he will pay a price for having done that, which is why I won't name him here. I doubt he would endorse my own take on the system, but he's still one of the few politicians I've ever met with real integrity. I can't think of a single Democrat in this state who would put themselves on the line like that for a convicted violent, crazed felon seeking mercy - much less another Republican.



I'm convinced that clemency boards exist largely to reinforce the illusion that the system we have of doling out punishment in our country is a "just" one that serves the best interests of society at large. By allowing room for pardons and commutations, we suggest that the legal system we live under, as a rule, delivers justice to criminals and victims alike, and that any abuse of power or injustice perpetrated by the state in the process is an exception that needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. If that was the reality, however, our prisons would not be packed almost exclusively with the poor - most of whom have the least ability to do great harm. In a truly just and morally evolved society it is the money-lenders, warmongers and rogue sheriffs of this land who would be doing time for exploitation, mass murder, and kidnapping - not making the rules the rest of us have to live by. They certainly wouldn't be retiring with honors and drawing down our collective dime.



But ours is neither a just nor a moral society - it isn't even a democracy. It is a capitalist republic in which the wealth and power of the few still depends on their ability to co-opt, terrorize, and restrain the many. We literally replaced our plantations with prisons when overt slavery went out of style. America's governments exploit and injure far more innocent and vulnerable people than all our lone criminals combined do. We've even made the perpetuation of victimization and crime an attractive, acceptable industry from which savvy investors can profit.



Thanks, everyone, for all your support through this. Stay with us, please - this fight is much bigger than one young man, and has only just begun. Keep an eye on what's happening with Davon for awhile longer - he went further out on a limb in the interest of prisoner rights and health care than any of the rest of us had to - and risks paying a much higher price now than the one extracted from him at sentencing. We'll see if he's allowed to keep his good time - and make it successfully through the 4 years of probation he has yet to serve -in light of his and his mother's public defiance. I guess we'll also see if the Arizona State Legislature shows any mercy for the honesty and courage of one of their own.