Criminal Justice Reform

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Clemency Hearing Raises the Question of Whether Massachusetts’ Courts Are Ready to Extend the Prohibition on LWOP Sentences Beyond Eighteen

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By Stevie Leahy

In 1997, William Allen was convicted of armed robbery and felony murder and is currently serving a sentence of life without parole (“LWOP”). At the time of these crimes, Mr. Allen was twenty years old. For individuals like Mr. Allen, the executive clemency process is currently the only avenue to correct the missteps of the legal system, specifically as to sentencing under since-changed laws. The urgent need for clemency in his case raises the broader question of whether LWOP sentences for late adolescents are even constitutional under the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Increased use of clemency as well as judicial action to extend the age limit are two measures that would also work toward mitigating disproportionate rates of incarceration for Black and Brown individuals within the state . . .

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Connecticut’s Budding Business

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By Alexander McGrath

On June 22, 2021, with one momentous signature, Governor Lemont welcomed Connecticut into the age of cannabis legalization. With the passage of Senate Bill 1201, Connecticut became the 19th state to legalize the recreational use of cannabis after years of failed attempts to gain bipartisan support. This was the third time Connecticut pushed for a cannabis bill, as the latest proposal was vetoed by the Governor for not containing sufficient social equity measures. Governor Lemont was adamant that this Bill include provisions mandating special access to the communities most severely impacted by the war on drugs . . .

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Massachusetts Highest Court Mandates Parole Reform in Dinkins v. Massachusetts Parole Board

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By Lauren Watford

A major parole reform is now underway in Massachusetts after a win in Dinkins & Ivey v. Massachusetts Parole Board. Prisoners serving parole-eligible life sentences with consecutive sentences could be released years, possibly decades sooner, and will receive new parole hearings. Importantly, the Court held the Parole Board accountable for its injustices. . .

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Open Letters to Prison Administrators: Do Black Lives Matter to the Department of Corrections?

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By Mac Hudson

Am I any less human because I happen to be Black and in prison? Are Massachusetts prisons the only place on Earth that racism does not exist? There isn’t anyone in America that hasn’t heard the name George Floyd and the many names of Black and Brown lives prematurely extinguished at the hands of police. It has created a difficult national conversation that has brought society full circle to confront one of America’s ugly realities of racial oppression and racial inequity. Our society has had to face a few hard truths that have given way to the idea that no citizen is privileged to sit idly by and permit such inhumane treatment without suffering a collective consequence to their own moral decadence. Booker T. Washington said, “one man cannot hold another down in the ditch without staying down in the ditch with him.” Morally speaking, racism has generationally kept all of us, people of all races, down. It has become so ingrained in society that it is as American as apple pie! So much so, that when someone attacks racism, some white people think you are attacking America herself or her ideals instead of challenging Americans to live up to her ideals . . .

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What Do We Want? Justice! When Do We Want It? Now! So, Why Is It Taking So Long To Receive Justice?

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By Asantewaah Ofosuhene

“Justice delayed is justice denied.” We have all heard this saying, but what does it really mean? This legal maxim means, when there is equitable relief available to an injured party, but that relief is not given in a timely manner, then it is as if there is no remedy at all. Why is delayed justice, leading to no justice, normalized within the United States criminal justice system? . . .

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Blueprints of a Black New Deal

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By Elijah Miller

Drop a pin on any threadbare of our crises and you will find a thousand shifting layers of history folding in to form our social architecture. Over [100,000][1] U.S. residents and counting have now been snuffed out by a deadly combination of COVID-19 and an unrestrained dominance of racialized Neoliberal capitalism. Like so many diseases, Coronavirus is a threat, but it is the pre-existing conditions that make it so deadly. With blotted eyes and broken shoulders, rotted lungs, minds strung out of our gaslit sons, every organ in our social body aches in self-immolating class, gender, race . . .

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Smartphones and Compelled Decryption: An Interview with Attorney David Rangaviz

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By David Rangaviz and Miranda Jang

Under what circumstances can a citizen be forced to unlock their smartphone for government inspection? On March 6, 2019, the Supreme Judicial Court decided Commonwealth v. Dennis Jones, in which the Court held that the government can compel a suspect to unlock their smartphone, and so disclose all of its contents, if it proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect knows the passcode to the phone in question. The SJC held that the only “testimonial” aspect to an act of decryption is just the person saying that he or she knows the code to the target phone. Jones was the first decision from any state supreme court in the country to set out the constitutional rules around compelled decryption, which is one of the most significant self-incrimination issues in the digital age . . .

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Legislation to Watch: Abolishing Life Without Parole

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By Renna Ayyash

Seeking to continue the success of last session’s Criminal Justice Reform Act, St. 2018, c. 69, a number of currently proposed legislative bills aim to reprioritize rehabilitation, rather than punishment, in the Massachusetts’s prison system. The specific focus of this entry will be on An Act to Reduce Mass Incarceration, S.D. 533/H.D. 154, which would abolish the sentence of life without parole (LWOP), a sentence more than one in ten Massachusetts’ prisoners are serving. Ashley Nellis, Still Life: America’s Increasing Use of Life and Long-Term Sentences, The Sentencing Project (May 3, 2017). As this article hopes to illustrate, this proposed bill should be seriously considered for both pecuniary and financial reasons . . .