(This post was first published in March 2021. I came across it today as I was reflecting…I realized I had more to say.)
Yesterday I received a call from a former probation client asking if I would appear in court this morning for his sentencing. As we talked about his circumstances, I learned that after I left my job a year ago, a trap was being set by the Drug Task Force, and relapse was knocking at my former client’s door tempting him out to play. He’d had previous problems with cocaine but had been clean for several years. It appeared the drug came calling again and in hindsight, it’s obvious his guard was down and temptation was knocking at his front door.
Four months later he was arrested on numerous felony charges and today he’s before the Court for sentencing. He’s facing a possible 6-16 year DOC sentence and he asked me to appear because he felt my report to the Court after supervising him for 3+ years would portray him more accurately than a report from a stranger who met with him over video for 45 minutes. Don’t get me wrong here, he wasn’t trying to get out of accountability, in an odd sort of way, accountability was a strength of his. He just felt there was a picture painted by professionals that was grossly inaccurate.
As we waited for his name to be called outside the courtroom, I said to him, “I want to ask you what the hell you were thinking…but maybe we’ll have that conversation somewhere down the road.” We talked a bit; he reflected on how his lapse in judgment had now placed his significant other and their two-year-old daughter in a precarious position; we talked about the cars he had purchased online and what his plans would be for restoring them, for flipping them to make a profit; we didn’t engage in small talk…that’s just something we never did. I always enjoyed conversations where I learned from his perspective, the perspective of a black man living in very white northern Colorado. I always found him to be articulate, to be educated in his thoughts and opinions, and to come from a place of accountability, never taking the victim position…he had some criminal thinking for sure, but I appreciated his perspective of understanding law-enforcement had a job to do and when he did get caught, he would always say “it was nothing personal, they’re just doing their job.”
GAME TIME
Just then, my client’s attorney came out and told him his name was called by the Court. As he walked in, I wondered to myself if he was going to walk out these same doors, or was he going to be taken into custody. I wondered about how big this moment was for his two-year-old daughter, for his family. I wondered about how this moment could forever change the trajectory of his daughter’s life…even though she was way too young to understand the moment she was in. Our legal system is broken, and it causes collateral damage…but we wouldn’t be standing before this broken system had my former client not made the decisions he made between February and July of last year…so here we are…here we go, showtime…
All parties presented their perspective to the Court and it came down to sentencing. I’ll get there in a moment, but this blog post isn’t as much about his day in court as it is about all the frustrating thoughts that once again surfaced in the 24 hours prior to this moment in court, beginning with his call to me yesterday morning…all the times I’ve worked with people struggling through the pains of life and the damage created by their decisions for how to cope with those pains, and all the times the system only seemed to get in the way because of a focus on consequences.
ALL ROADS LEAD “HERE“
Here I am once again in a situation where people need real answers, and they aren’t finding them. People act out, they make bad decisions and experience pain from their decision; those closest to them experience the secondary trauma of those decision; families are devastated by outcomes, children sustain injury, whether it be physical, psychological, emotional, or sexual…hurt people hurt people.
It’s so easy to stand at arms-length and be a “blamer”. To look at the addict with little compassion and say, “you did this to yourself”; to stand by and speak of all the ineffective help that was offered to a person, and put it back on them for not making better choices; to see the severely mentally ill person, the homeless person, and reconcile in our minds that there are resources out there and they just have to take advantage of them…
I’m still on the “ROAD”, I haven’t come to the “HERE” yet…
Yeah…all this pondering comes from sitting outside that courtroom, about 30 feet from my old client, who spent the last 15-20 minutes before sentencing alone on a bench with his daughter and girlfriend. As I watched them in those moments, I couldn’t help but reflect…it stirred up those moments in my life when I was able to connect with “that guy” or “that gal” who cried over their addiction, the one who came in crying about the meth…crying about the alcohol, crying about the heroin… It stirred up the conversations I had with the Kelvins, the Michaels, the Barbs, the Kyles, the Andres… on and on I can go thinking about the people (some are Facebook friends) who I came to know beyond their addiction, beyond their crimes…the answers they needed, the answers they weren’t finding…the inadequate answers our “System” was giving them and then blaming them for not “taking advantage of the opportunities”.
People need real answers; I need real answers.
“HERE”
Okay, all those “roads” I was referring to earlier…they lead right here to this moment for me. I know where “HERE” is…I just don’t have a clue what’s beyond “HERE”. I hesitate to even articulate what that place is because of how it could turn some readers off, readers who have no idea the internal struggle I deal with about this subject…this person. However, I’ll say it and hope you hang in there with me…resist placing me into a box and profiling me…but the place I find myself standing is before the name of Jesus.
So much brokenness; so many hurting people needing to be made whole; so many prisoners of their own choices; and my questions go something like this:
- How can the Church appear so ineffective in dealing with the issues in this world?
- How is it the Church has become so irrelevant because what it’s pedaling…so few are buying?
- How can such a people (the Church) appear to be so detached from the issues in our communities?
The questions go on and on for me…but here I am in this moment…in this place…and I cannot help but say, Lord, what would you do in these moments if you were here right now; what would you have me do as a representative of yours?
I’m sorry but I won’t be going much further in this post, because I have more questions than answers. Things are still building within me and they may come out with another post at some point. It’s my hope that people will read this and brush off the distractions around them…think…connect with your heart, ponder what’s going on around you… Allow yourself to hear, to feel, and to think deeply…
THE VERDICT
To those interested in the outcome in the courtroom, my former client was sentenced to 8 years in community corrections. He won’t be going to prison as the District Attorney’s Office wanted, but he didn’t exit out those courtroom doors either. He didn’t get to kiss his little girl goodbye; he didn’t get to kiss his significant other…he was cuffed and shackled and led through a side entrance where he begins an 8-year sentence today.
TRAGEDY AT 201 LAPORTE
A tragedy took place today in Courtroom 4C but no media swept in to cover it, no helicopters hovered over the courthouse, no one paused to grieve. A two-year-old daughter and her mom were devastated by an outcome they had no part in other than sharing in this man’s life, and the world kept on moving without a skip in it’s beat…and another sad reality is, this happens so often in so many of our communities.
At some point if we live long enough, it seems to me we will all hit that moment where we need answers. Perhaps it’s in a doctor’s office when we hear a report from tests that rock our world; perhaps it’s the sudden loss of a loved one; a loss in employment that removes all illusions of security…or something else. If we live long enough, it just seems to me we will all hit that moment where all the noise suddenly leaves, and we’re left with questions that require real answers.