Kenneth McGee ran into an old acquaintance online Feb. 25 during a public hearing on House Bill 2002 on criminal justice reform.
It was former Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Walker who sentenced McGee to five years in prison as part of a plea deal to avoid the mandatory sentences Oregon voters imposed in 1994.
McGee told members of the House Judiciary Committee he bears no hard feelings toward the judge.
“I remember the judge looking over my case, saying he wished he didn’t have to impose the sentence I got,” McGee said. “He had no other choice because of Measure 11.”
House Bill 2002 seeks several reforms to Oregon’s criminal justice system. Virtual hearings on the bill Feb. 25 and March 2 drew numerous former prisoners who talked about living with a system they say is often criminally short on justice.
“The consequences they designed for us, coming out of prison, it’s actually set up to fail,” Calvin Harris told committee members March 2.
“It’s really permanent punishment if you look at it,” he said. “You get out of jail, and you still got restrictions on you after paying all these actual debts back to society.”
Defendants’ problems begin when they get arrested. Many criminal defendants in Oregon plead guilty rather than face Measure 11 sentences for crimes against other people.
House Bill 2002 returns sentencing decisions to judges for felonies other than murder. The bill also:
* Prohibits police from arresting people without warrants for misdemeanors, except for Class A misdemeanors or crimes committed in the presence of police.
* Prohibits police from pulling people over for expired registration stickers, missing headlights and other minor offenses.
* Prohibits parole and probation officers from carrying firearms and wearing uniforms while performing their duties.
* Prohibits revoking people’s parole and probation unless the person flees the state or is convicted of a new felony or Class A misdemeanor.
* Expands the reductions people can earn in parole and probation supervision.
* Provides state money to efforts to rethink law enforcement and incarceration.
* Amends the money charged to released prisoners for parole and probation services.
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The proposed reforms irk many professionals in the criminal justice system and upset even more crime victims and their advocates.
“The certainty of a Measure 11 sentence allows victims to feel safe, but also keeps victims safe throughout their lives as they move on, and their offenders are incarcerated,” Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton told lawmakers Feb. 25.
“I believe by incarcerating these very dangerous, especially sexual, predators, we are not only protecting the victims of their crimes, but also future people from becoming victims,” he said.
Walker, the former circuit court judge, said mandatory sentences often work better in theory rather than practice. He presided over thousands of Measure 11 cases during his 13 years on the bench, he said Feb. 25.
He recalled two cases, each involving groups of young men assaulting people on TriMet’s MAX trains. One group of defendants was white. The other was Black. None of the defendants had previous criminal records.
“The prosecutor’s offer to the young Black men was two to three years in prison,” he said. “The offer to the young white men was probation.”
White prosecutors often fail to see the inherent inequity in the system, he added.
“I believe it’s an implicit bias people have in the criminal justice system that Black people just get treated differently than white people do,” Walker said.
Besides, he said, Measure 11 was never about mandatory sentences. It was more like a game of “Let’s Make a Deal.”
“The only real purpose the ballot measure served was to give the state an additional tool in their arsenal to negotiate the cases,” said Walker.
Such deals often turn raw for people caught in a system that easily loses sight of their humanity, McGee said.
STREET ROOTS NEWS: More on Measure 11
At age 15, McGee faced 12 1/2 years in prison on a Measure 11 offense.
“I made some bad choices and caused harm,” he told committee members Feb. 25. “I know that I need to be held accountable for that. I had a newborn child of my own, and I was terrified to take my case to trial because I would face a mandatory minimum sentence.”
He knew Walker wouldn’t be able to lessen his sentence.
“I made the terrifying decision to take a plea deal of five years, 10 months,” he said. “I served my sentence with no chance of earned time for good behavior.”
McGee told lawmakers he returned to the community three years ago with hopes of a fresh start.
“Very quickly, reality set in,” he said. “The physical cuffs had been removed, but I was still being punished for the decisions I made as a teenager. I never knew how damaging incarceration would be on my employment opportunities, where I could live.”
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Fear dominated Morgan Godvin’s life after prison.
Godvin, an Air Force veteran, served several years in prison because her drug addiction and dealing led to the death of a friend. After prison, she was supervised by county and federal probation officials.
“No matter how well I was doing, every meeting with my P.O., it made me just feel fear in my heart,” Godvin said Feb. 25. “I would start to tremble, like actually tremble, in my chest. Why?
“Their most famed tool is arrests,” she told lawmakers. “Them using that tool against you feels like an eventuality. Countless UAs (urinalysis). An officer stared at me as I pulled down my pants and underwear and peed into their cup.”
She always panicked, she said.
“What if CBD had gotten into my drink and there were trace amounts of THC?” she testified. “Or what if I had eaten poppy seeds? It wasn’t enough just knowing that I hadn’t used drugs because the law was not in my favor when I was on supervision.
“My rights were diminished,” she added. “I always felt like I was a half-step away from landing back in jail — a false positive, a missed appointment. It takes so little.”
Jeremiah Stromberg, the assistant director of the Community Corrections Division for the Oregon Department of Corrections, said in written testimony March 2 that parole and probation officers need to wear police-style uniforms.
It’s a matter of “respect,” he said.
Godvin bristled at that statement. “If you think it’s a matter of respect to show up at my place of work and out me to my co-workers with your emblazoned uniforms and visible firearms, we are grossly misunderstanding each other,” she said.
“Respect would be treating me as the normal, productive member of society that I am,” she added.
People can spot a parole and probation officer 100 yards away, Godvin said. “My neighbors and my co-workers see that. They understand the message: ‘I am a criminal. I am dangerous.’”
Shannon Wite, the deputy director of Partnership for Safety and Justice, told lawmakers the system and its judgments fall particularly hard on people of color.
“Our system is built within Oregon’s distinctly racist history, and we must be specific in our reforms to address that,” she said.
Concerns over systemic racism in the justice system run deeper than her professional duties, Wite told the committee Feb. 25. A close young family member, a Black teenager, was convicted as an adult under Measure 11.
Advocates of Measure 11 say mandatory sentences are reserved for the worst of the worst. That’s not true of her loved one, Wite said.
“He made a bad choice and needed to be held accountable, but he is not the worst of the worst,” she said.
“He is a beautiful soul who has so much to contribute,” she added. “What we are seeking with (House Bill) 2002 is reform that recognizes that in him and in everyone the system touches.”
Lee Miller, another former inmate, told lawmakers he just wants a realistic chance to reform.
“It’s hard for me to pay for all my bills,” he testified Feb. 25. “As everyone knows, that’s hard to do, but with a fixed income, it’s hard to pay those fines and fees that come from our parole officer from when we first get out of prison.
“I want to move forward in life and make a difference in my life as well as for the people around me and my community,” he said. “I want to stand as a citizen of this state. I want to be a part of this state. I want to be a good citizen.”
Patrick Alexander told committee members he served 15 years in prison on a Measure 11 offense.
“I understand punishment has to be done, but once I got out of prison and I was asking for the type of help parole could offer me, they told me they had no help for me whatsoever,” he testified March 2.
Calvin Harris said he faced the same problems after he was released.
“When people get out, you don’t have no money,” Harris said March 2. “Where are you going to get money from when you’re out of jail for two hours, and they tell you need $35 for some fees? That’s ridiculous.”
Wildford Johnson told lawmakers the system needs to consider why people commit crimes.
“I take full responsibility for the choices I made,” he testified March 2. “However, the choices I made during that time, it was really out of trauma. I was coping with alcohol and drugs.
“It wasn’t that I was an immoral person,” he said. “It wasn’t that I was just this bad person in society. Really, the truth about it was that I was suffering.”
Justice doesn’t always have to mean punishment, Johnson said.
“Within my culture, my community, there’s more trauma than what appears to be drama,” he said. “What I mean is that the people we’re penalizing and calling immoral and putting all these charges on to where it sticks for the rest of their lives, it’s really more a matter of healing that needs to take place.”
State Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Wilsonville) chairs the judiciary committee and said it’s important for people affected by the justice system to make their voices heard in the Legislature.
“We all experience the criminal justice system differently — depending on our income, our family and professional background, our behavioral health needs, and yes, our race and ethnicity,” Bynum said at the beginning of the first hearing in February.
“The voices of Black people, Indigenous people and other people of color have been overlooked in reform by a system that disproportionately punishes us,” she added.
Proponents of Measure 11 say its mandatory sentences are about conduct rather than color. Bynum said she doesn’t buy it.
“Sound bites like ‘conduct, not color’ as some opponents of this bill like to say, ignores the historical context of overcharging Black, Indigenous and people of color with harsher crimes and longer sentences than their white counterparts who committed similar offenses,” she said.
The system needs to change, Bynum said.
“For far too long, we have not been listened to as people of color and communities of color in policymaking and what it would take to actually achieve community safety.”
McGee said everyone wants safer communities. The debate is over how to achieve it.
“Mandatory sentencing doesn’t make the community safer,” he said. “It doesn’t fix any problems. It just makes existing problems worse.”