I had a very similar experience, with related, but different, personal consequences. Right after law school, while I was studying for the bar in MIchigan, one of my law school mentors got me a job helping Michigan's Parole Board make its parole-revocation procedures constitutional (a start-anywhere process, if you get my meaning). As part of the job, I was given a tour of several of the state's prisons, including Jackson, which was at the time the largest walled prison in the world. My tour guide (one of the guards) told me he was saving the Honor Block for last, which was where especially well-behaved prisoners were housed. When we got to the HB and I saw its relatively benign conditions, I knew I could never spend a day living in those conditions. It also showed me that the power to incarcerate is one we should always exercise as judiciously and compassionately as we can.
This was very thoughtful. Thank you. I have not thought about the profound loss of liberty that people for quite some time. After I reflecting on it and the mental health of youth in a book I encountered that a psychiatrist wrote I became more entrenched in my belief that the loss of liberty is great and grace punishments. As a third year law student in Massachusetts I also had the opportunity to serve in a similar capacity in Cambridge, it’s eye opening. I left that experience challenged in different ways, at the demographics of the pool of defendants, collegial relationships with the prosecutors and police, surprised at the humanity of the prosecutors, apprehensive at the power I possessed, uncomfortable with my reliance on police representations. On my first day at a bail hearing while reciting the narrative in the police report and after making my argument, the defendant looked at me and said “he’s lying.” I never forgot those words and it coloured my experience the rest of the term. What if the police report wasn’t true? Was I arguing to keep this man in jail based on lies? I never got over that hump but admire my friends that did and do good work. Incarceration, sadly, is best in the case of some but its terms and conditions should be given profound thought.
I had a very similar experience, with related, but different, personal consequences. Right after law school, while I was studying for the bar in MIchigan, one of my law school mentors got me a job helping Michigan's Parole Board make its parole-revocation procedures constitutional (a start-anywhere process, if you get my meaning). As part of the job, I was given a tour of several of the state's prisons, including Jackson, which was at the time the largest walled prison in the world. My tour guide (one of the guards) told me he was saving the Honor Block for last, which was where especially well-behaved prisoners were housed. When we got to the HB and I saw its relatively benign conditions, I knew I could never spend a day living in those conditions. It also showed me that the power to incarcerate is one we should always exercise as judiciously and compassionately as we can.
This was very thoughtful. Thank you. I have not thought about the profound loss of liberty that people for quite some time. After I reflecting on it and the mental health of youth in a book I encountered that a psychiatrist wrote I became more entrenched in my belief that the loss of liberty is great and grace punishments. As a third year law student in Massachusetts I also had the opportunity to serve in a similar capacity in Cambridge, it’s eye opening. I left that experience challenged in different ways, at the demographics of the pool of defendants, collegial relationships with the prosecutors and police, surprised at the humanity of the prosecutors, apprehensive at the power I possessed, uncomfortable with my reliance on police representations. On my first day at a bail hearing while reciting the narrative in the police report and after making my argument, the defendant looked at me and said “he’s lying.” I never forgot those words and it coloured my experience the rest of the term. What if the police report wasn’t true? Was I arguing to keep this man in jail based on lies? I never got over that hump but admire my friends that did and do good work. Incarceration, sadly, is best in the case of some but its terms and conditions should be given profound thought.
Profound and moving. Thank you Mr. Epner for this post.
Thank you for this post, Mitch.
Thank you for this post. Personally, I would want him to receive the justice he deserves.