The Incarcerated Intellectual: Unfinished Business: Unchained and Unbroken

I take a deep and extended breath, turn my playlist to the song "Freedom" by Pharrell Williams, crank up the volume, and begin to birth a tribute to living and passed legends who are of unquestionable significance.

Ladies and gentlemen, we arrive at this juncture by way of a graceful encounter, an incredible interview with someone who has invested their entire life to helping others, a woman who is as elegant as she is powerful, Camerina Zorrozua. She is a Gonzaga Law School Alumnus, who fights for her clients daily. Two of her greatest influencers are her mom and grandmother whose legacies are built from pure service and sacrifice for others. Her grandmother, who was an immigrant from Mexico, taught her love conquers all, which has become her life's mantra.

There is a sense of urgency in the way she speaks of restorative justice, and that is how I come to know of a sensible man by the name of Carl Maxey.

Zorrozua brings practical resolutions to the most pressing issues within our criminal justice system. "We need truth and reconciliation in our criminal justice system," she said. Zorrozua also explains we must acknowledge and address the elephant in the room, the effects of implicit and explicit racism within the web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that are used to control communities of color. I'm taken aback she's actually saying the quiet part out loud. 

She advances a fundamental solution: Repeal and replace the sentencing Reform Act of 1981. She explains, "I often reflect on Carl Maxey's op-ed from 1983. Everything he foretold has happened."

Maxey's op-ed is titled: "Yes, the judicial system discriminates." 14 years after it was published, Maxey and several others lodged a complaint against the National Rifle Association (NRA). They asserted that the NRA and state officials orchestrated Initiative 593, also known as Washington's three-strikes law, with an intent to oppress racial minorities.

Maxey sadly passed away before the case concluded. He went out fighting for tens of thousands of men, women, and communities of color. He foresaw the insidious and malignant nature of the Persistent Offender Accountability Act.

The idea that the three-strikes law was engineered by the politically elite to function as a vehicle for racism became crystal clear when William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan and early advocate for the law, claimed that "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." 

I implore you to do your research, then ask yourself this question: If a collective group of racists used a specific law to dehumanize and control communities of color, would you support that law?

The three-strikes law was enacted via the Sentencing Reform Act (SRA) of 1981, which is why Zorrozua is arguing that repealing it is worthy of the public's attention. She uses legislation to deconstruct racism.

The former Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, Steven C. Gonzalez, gave a notable opinion that also highlights Zorrozua's rationale: "While, perhaps, the SRA constrains some judicial discrimination and favoritism at sentencing, it does so at the cost of making it impossible for judges to avoid imposing a sentence driven by the injustices embedded in the criminal justice system, no matter how obvious those injustices might be."

What justice Gonzalez makes clear is the SRA has fundamentally produced discriminatory outcomes in determining which prisoners serve the longest sentences. The racism is in its functionality. It transfers an exorbitant amount of power from the judiciary branch to the executive branch. Sound familiar in the era of Trumpism 2.0? 

The three-strikes law which mandates life without parole for non homicide offenses, gives the prosecutor (who's an officer of the executive branch) all the discretionary power when initiating the prosecution, and confiscates all discretionary power from judges during the sentencing phase. Maxey was right and everything he foretold has happened. 

Zorrozua explains that repealing and replacing the SRA with more just resentencing laws would require a pathway similar to State v. Blake, the Washington State Supreme Court decision that declared the state's felony drug possession law unconstitutional and void. The ruling provided a mechanism to review and reconcile certain convictions and sentences to conform to our modern jurisprudence.

If State v. Blake was used as a precedent, Zorrozua argues that prior sentences could then be recalculated to reflect a common law and statutory best practices, removing juvenile points and applying modern youth mitigation standards. It would also allow courts to evaluate an individual's demonstrated rehabilitation and judge the societal utility of continued incarceration.

Zorrozua proposes a comprehensive plan of action that could produce measurable results, she explains that "The Department of Corrections (DOC) receives substantial public funding annually, costing taxpayers approximately $80,000 per year to incarcerate just one person."

She ends our interview by saying, "Washington state has a fiscal responsibility and a legislative mandate to ensure its justice system reflects current values. Reconciling these sentences fulfills that mandate by prioritizing rehabilitation, correcting documented racial inequities, and returning millions of dollars to the state budget. Most important, this type of legislation would finally acknowledge the harm caused by our systems and address it so that our brothers and sisters can finally come home."

As someone who is sentenced under the three-strikes law, which mandates my death by prison, I am deeply indebted to Carl Maxey, and Camerina Zorrozua for unapologetically speaking truth to power.

None of us are alone in this fight for justice. We are no longer afraid of those who fear us free. Freedom calls and so we run. Unchained and Unbroken.