Everyone has a story to tell, and Terry Thomas has a few.  It all started forty nine years ago, on the south side of Chicago.  Initially, I’m struck by just how ‘normal’ his childhood sounds, if there is such a thing.  He had a hard-working mom and dad, parents who wanted to educate and raise strong and independent kids.  There was a ‘hint’ that something wasn’t quite right, but I sense the Thomas children were not exposed to a lot of the tension between their parents, or maybe Terry was just too young to be aware of it.  Their father cheated, their mother didn’t like it.  There was abuse.  But – Terry remembers a middle class, loving home.

One night when Terry was twelve years old, everything he ever knew turned upside down.  He woke to the sounds of his parents arguing.  Oily and Lucille may have had issues before, but this night was different.  It was so different that Terry’s older sister gathered all four of her siblings and huddled them into the basement bathroom.  They listened as their father – the man they loved – begged for his life, followed by the sound of the gunshots that would later take his life.

Terry has memories from that night that can’t be erased.  He remembers the exact words that were spoken to his father by the police officer that arrived on the scene – “Get up, big nigga.”  That was one of Terry Thomas’ first encounters with law enforcement in Chicago.

A twelve year old boy in a middle class home lost both his parents that day.  His father, whom he loved, later died, and his mother left to serve a nearly two year sentence.

The Thomas children had to continue on after that night, each in their own way.  Terry remembers going back to school and feeling ashamed of what had taken place in his home.  He struggled to focus.  The fact that he was able to maintain any measure of stability in his life is due to his grandparents, who stepped up to take care of the children while Lucille served her sentence.  A young father himself, Terry dropped out of school at the age of seventeen to support two children of his own.

In 1988 Terry had a brush with the law.   He, along with several others, was searched, and drugs were found in the sock of his brother, Oily Thomas.  Both brothers were arrested that day, but the charges against Oily were dismissed and Terry was charged with drug possession.

In 1989, when he appeared in court for that incident, he was surprised to learn he was also arraigned on two more charges.  Those two charges claimed that Terry sold half a gram of cocaine to two undercover Chicago police officers in the same day.  Although Terry Thomas has requested the documents from the courts that support these charges, such as inventoried drugs or money, he has not been provided with any documentation of the evidence.

What he does have is an affidavit from Curtis Singleton, the man that claims to be the one that sold the drugs to the undercover officers that night.  Mr. Singleton expresses remorse – so much remorse that he completed Terry Thomas’ community service for him at the time.  In the affidavit he spoke of his regret for not standing up and taking responsibility for his actions.  He also states that he is willing to testify in court that he was the one that was actually guilty of possession with intent to distribute.

There is also an affidavit from Oily Thomas in regard to the original charge, confessing that the drugs that Terry was charged with having in his sock had actually been his.

In spite of the fact that there are affidavits signed by other individuals who admit guilt to these crimes, and also a valid argument regarding the length of time that took place between the arrests and the actual indictments, his lawyer convinced Terry to plead guilty to the crimes.

In April of 1996, trouble found him again.  He was once again arrested.   According to an affidavit by Byron Nelson, Mr. Nelson was selling drugs on the night in question, and Terry Thomas stopped by in his van.  Byron got inside.  At that point, they were approached by detectives and searched.  According to Byron Nelson, the officers found him with 37 packages of cocaine in his pocket.  Nothing was found on Terry.   They were both arrested.  When Byron Nelson tried to clear up the confusion at the police station, he states he was told to, ‘Tell it to the judge.’

Then again, in 1997, Terry found himself in trouble for drugs.  And, once again, there is an affidavit stating that Terry took the fall for someone else’s crime.  In the affidavit, Karl Merritt states that he was delivering drugs to someone when the police showed up.  Karl states he dropped his drugs and ran.  Karl says that he later found out that Terry laughed when he got away, and when questioned by the police, he wouldn’t give up his friend.  He then states that the police planted his drugs on Terry and arrested him.

There is no doubt in my mind that Terry Thomas has not been angelic.  He was often in places that he shouldn’t have been in and could have avoided some of his troubles, but he was a high school dropout becoming a man on the streets of Chicago with no parents and trying to raise kids of his own.  Having trouble around was his reality.

Sadly, the divide between citizens and those who police them in Chicago has been historically vast.  In a place that doesn’t often accept accountability there are many valid questions in the case of Terry Thomas.   Where it appears that one man seems to be continually battling with missteps with a police department, it is a police department that is notorious for missteps.  It is the very lack of consistent transparency within Chicago’s Police Department that makes Terry Thomas’ nightmare within the system possible.

There are some things that are not in question.  Terry Thomas lost his parents when he was twelve years old in a tragic manor.   He struggled to get his footing after that, which is no surprise.  Terry was a high school dropout, trying to support children when he was a child himself.  He lived in Chicago – a place where a Police Accountability Task Force has studied and documented the Police Department’s lack of accountability and transparency, not to mention targeting individuals of color.   There are several affidavits signed by individuals who clearly acknowledge their own guilt in the charges against Terry Thomas, who is now in Federal Prison and serving an additional twenty years on top of a ten year sentence for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance.   Those additional twenty years are for a combination of crimes that have signed affidavits by other individuals admitting to guilt – not to mention questions regarding the legality of the time between arrests and indictments.

Terry is scheduled for release on March 14, 2031.  He will be 62 years old at that time.

Inquiries as to the status of  the Conviction Integrity Unit’s review of Terry Thomas’ case  can be addressed to:
Kimberley Foxx
Cook County States Attorney
2650 S. California Avenue 12B13
Chicago, IL 60608

Terry Thomas can be contacted at:
Terry Thomas #16399424
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 1000
Milan, Michigan 48160

This is Ernest Parker, proud father and grandfather.  His warmth runs deeper than the smile.  His friends speak of him fondly, and I recently had the privilege of reading a letter he wrote, in which he described a fellow inmate.  Of his friend, he said, “His smile is like a beacon of light shining in the valley of despair.”  While speaking so highly of his friend, Ernest Parker also described his home as the ‘valley of despair’.  His home of nearly three decades has been a federal prison.

A few weeks before Christmas, 1990, Ernest Parker – Parker Bey to his friends – pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute a mixture containing cocaine base and possession with intent to distribute black tar heroin.  Less than two years later, in 1992, Ernest Parker was found guilty of conspiracy with intent to distribute in excess of five kilograms of cocaine while in prison.

That was almost thirty years ago.  This coming December, as the rest of us prepare for and celebrate the holiday season, Parker-Bay will begin his twenty eighth year of incarceration.  This autumn, he will celebrate his sixty-third birthday inside a prison. When he was first incarcerated, he had a ten year old daughter.  She is all grown up now, and has a daughter of her own.  Parker-Bay’s granddaughter will turn twelve this year.

Mr. Parker is not alone.  He, along with thousands of other grandfathers, are nearing the end of the their lives behind bars, at the same time that we have an administration that is speaking of getting tougher on crime, talking of resorting to the death penalty for some drug crimes.

Parker-Bey was drug dealer.  He was not a wealthy man using his status to belittle those he felt beneath him.  He was not a murderer.  He was not an arsonist.  He was not an abuser of children or women.  He was not a well-paid doctor writing prescriptions to addicts and abusing his position knowing full well the medical repercussions of his crime.  He was not a rapist.  He was not guilty of assault or armed robbery.  He has never been any of those things, but something he is known as today is a ‘good friend’.

At my request, Mr. Parker wrote to me about his case.  In his letter, he shared with me some of his frustration with his former lawyer and how he requested that they do things that were never done.  He also spoke of evidence he feels could have helped him that came up missing.

There are things that I know from my own life experiences and what others have shared with me time and time again.  Courts aren’t fair.  Anyone who thinks they are has not been very involved with them.  Guilt and innocence, reality and fiction – those things are often interchangeable in a courtroom.  Without talented representation that has your best interests at heart and behaves as your advocate, a person is very likely to experience that reality.  Lawyers, prosecutors and judges – they write the story.  That is reality, and it is just as real as Parker-Bey’s words to me describing his longtime home as ‘the unwholesome depths of a human warehouse’.  Ernest Parker, father, grandfather, good friend, former drug dealer, lives in a human warehouse, one of the thousands stored there as part of America’s failed ‘war on drugs’.

ERNEST PARKER can be contacted at:
Ernest Parker #02816-089
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 1000
Milan, Michigan 48160

As Grandpa gets down to her level, smiling for the photo, he knows it may be the last time he sees her for a while.  Not long after this photograph was taken, Robert Booker made the fifteen hour move west from Michigan, through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa – all the way to Yankton, South Dakota, where he settled into his new home on what was once a college campus, but is now known as Yankton Federal Prison Camp.  We have so many prisoners, we really do turn schools into prisons.

Booker talks of how beautiful the place is, the skies filled with hundreds of geese travelling in one direction one day and in the opposite the next, searching for something.  The trees hold nests too numerous to count.  The food’s better than where he was before.  The people are respectful.

To his friends, he’s Gino, or Bob, or Bobby.  To some he is Robert.  To the littlest ones, he is Grandpa.  Regardless of who he is to them – he is currently far away.  But, no matter where he has been geographically for the last two decades, he has been ‘removed’ from them all, cut off by concrete and fences, phone rules, mail restrictions and visitation room requirements.

Robert Booker has been without his family for nearly twenty-five years.  He missed dinners, holidays, graduations and funerals.  He missed watching his children grow and seeing his parents buried.  Currently, he’s missing taking his grandkids to the park, telling them tall tales, and holding their tiny hands in his while they cross the street.  He’s missing every single one of their ‘firsts’.  He lost one generation and he is currently losing another.

Booker isn’t a danger to himself or anyone, that is why he is housed in a ‘camp’.  He’s proven he is not a security threat and has spent the last two and a half decades writing.  Not just writing, but achieving goals many writers only dream of.  He’s worked hard, authoring six published books, with another fifty manuscripts in storage.

In spite of that, the federal government spends over $30,000 a year to keep him far removed from his family and housed in Yankton, South Dakota.  That figure becomes three quarters of a million dollars if multiplied by twenty five, the approximate number of years that Booker has been incarcerated.   That’s a lot of money to keep a man that is no threat to anyone from going home.

The housing costs do not include the money the government has spent to fight the legal battle to keep him behind bars.  Mr. Booker was arrested June 29, 1994 on charges that included possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine and operating a ‘crack distribution house’.

On April 13, 1995, Booker was sentenced to twenty years in federal prison.  That wasn’t enough, and in July of 1996 he was sentenced again and given thirty years.  A year later – Booker was again resentenced, this time getting Life.  It’s hard to understand why so much money would be invested to keep one nonviolent individual from ever being free again, and it would be difficult to calculate how many thousands of dollars were spent in order for the prosecution to achieve that goal.  It seems the man hours and funds could be spent on something much less destructive and more productive.  It defies logic, really.

Today, nearly twenty five years after his conviction, Robert Booker is a loving father, an adoring grandfather, an author, and friend to many.  There was a war started decades ago that has not improved the drug situation in this country, but rather continues to feed the hunger of the largest mass incarceration problem in the world – the overpopulation of the prisons in the United States.  This destructive pattern is not only filling our prisons to overflowing, but also destroying families, leaving large sections of society feeling hopeless, helpless and targeted – with good reason.

Twenty years into Booker’s life sentence, the sentencing guidelines  changed, reducing Life to 38 years.  Then, before he left office, Obama granted him clemency, once again reducing the sentence, this time to thirty years.

Yet, Robert Booker remains in prison to this day.  He is serving his time as a trusted inmate, walking the halls of what used to be a college campus in Yankton and watching the geese fly by.  He continues to miss all of the ‘firsts’ with his grandkids, walking in endless circles around a track, and writing.  And the government continues to fund his incarceration in order to punish a man who has already been punished, reform a man who has already been reformed, and keep a man they know is not a threat to anyone far removed from those who love him.  For what?  Robert Booker is the face of the fallout of the failed war on drugs.

AUTHOR’S NOTE.   Robert Booker loves to hear from people and readers of his books.  He can be contacted at:
Robert Booker #19040039
Federal Prison Camp Yankton
P.O. Box 700
Yankton, SD 57078
Booker’s books can be purchased at his Author Page on Amazon.

“I just want to watch my grandkids grow up,” Andre Williams recently told a friend.  It’s not a lot to want, but for Andre it might be impossible.  Just as impossible as it was to watch his own kids grow up.  Williams is just over halfway through a forty year prison sentence.  It’s not hard to understand how he got to prison, what’s hard to understand is why they won’t let him out.

Andre’s beginnings were humble.  He was the last of nine children, born to a mother who struggled with addiction.  She’d fallen victim to the poverty of the world she lived in.  When Andre was born in 1970, he was brought into a neighborhood plagued with drugs, violence, and the hopelessness that comes with it.  Gangs and dealing drugs were a way of life.

Without the stability some people take for granted, Williams struggled in school and had a hard time fitting in.  There was one place he felt at home though, and that was in the care of his grandmother, Mary.  She ran her home with a firm hand, but also a sense of welcome and concern.  At fourteen years old, Williams lost the home she provided when she passed away.  Soon after, he quit going to school.   Andre wanted to support himself, and he began doing it the only way he knew how.  The most successful people in his neighborhood were dealing drugs for a living.

Drug dealing may have been the way Andre made ends meet, but his mother said he had a ‘sweet heart’ like his daddy.  His hard life had taught him compassion.  If he could avoid hurting anybody, he would.  Violence was a part of the lifestyle he lived in, but violence wasn’t a part of him.  He’d seen what the streets had done to too many in his family.  If somebody he cared about needed something and he could do something about it, he would.   He didn’t hold grudges, and tried to see the reasons why people behaved the way they did.   He would try to lift people’s spirits when he could.  He was a drug dealer because that is what life dealt him, but he was a drug dealer with a heart.  To this day, he is still known as a ‘good guy’.

There weren’t just drugs in the Chicago neighborhood Andre lived in. There were also crooked cops.  Too often, people who were supposed to be authority figures became just as much a part of the life.  Some officers would rather take their share of the profits than bring somebody in.   There are unethical people everywhere, and in a neighborhood where money is flowing back and forth on the streets, a badge doesn’t mean you are immune, and some officers had a price.   A drug dealer wasn’t really in a position to report a theft, and everybody knew it.  So, in 1991 when one officer began a four year investigation as a dirty cop – it wasn’t hard to believe.  They had seen it before.

Year in and year out, thousands of dollars and man hours later – the government had built a case.   It helped when a few of those charged chose to cooperate, saying whatever they needed to say to save themselves.  It happens.

Previous to this arrest, Andre had pled guilty to two unrelated drug charges in 1989 and been given probation.

When the dust settled after this case, Andre Williams was sentenced to forty years.  He was not the leader of the operation, but was often in contact with the ‘dirty officer’ for that very reason.  Twenty one people went to trial, and after this year, Andre will be the only one left incarcerated.

He shouldn’t be though.  At sentencing, due to an error in a report, Andre was labeled a ‘career offender’.  The judge who heard the original case knows about the error.  The government knows about the error.  The prosecutor knows about the error.  They all knew about the error at sentencing.  In an Order signed by Judge Robert Gettleman, the original judge, dated November 12, 2014 it states, “the court strongly recommends that the Bureau of Prisons, in classifying Andre Williams, take into consideration that he is not a ‘career offender’, and that the PSR incorrectly labeled him as such.”

There is a United States Brief, filed on January 7, 2015, outlining several of the actions taken on this case.  The important issues get lost among the legal terminology, but, among other things it makes the following points:

• “Williams, along with other codefendants, stood trial and was convicted of the charges against him on June 7, 1996.”

In reference to the Presentence Investigation Report, used to determine Andre’s sentence, it states:

• “The probation officer’s determination that Williams was a career offender was incorrect…”
• “The court and parties became aware of the error several months prior to Williams’ sentencing on April 10, 1998.”

The brief goes on to say:

• “The state court transcript reflected that Williams had only one prior conviction for possession with intent to distribute, and one conviction for simple possession.”
• “The Circuit Court of Cook County later corrected it’s records to reflect the correct offense…”
• “filed a motion… on June 29, 2007, seeking a reduction in his sentence as a result of the amended crack cocaine guidelines…”
• “The motion was denied on February 25, 2009 because as a career offender, Williams was not entitled to relief.”
• “On October 31, 2012, Williams filed a motion to vacate void judgment, arguing that the sentencing judgment of April 10, 1998 should be vacated, because the court was without jurisdiction to sentence him as a career offender and because the court lacked jurisdiction to sentence him as a career offender.”
• “On July 5, 2013, the government responded that the district court did not have the jurisdiction to adjudicate William’s motion, even though he was correct that he was improperly deemed a career offender at sentencing, because it was a second or successive 2255 petition.”
• “On November 8, 2013, Williams filed a motion in this Court, seeking an order authorizing the district court to entertain a second or successive motion for collateral review.”
• “On November 15, 2013, this Court denied the motion, reasoning, ‘to obtain authorization, William’s proposed claim must rely on a new constitution rule… or new facts showing innocence… the parties knew about the mischaracterization of William’s prior conviction in 1998; it was discussed during his sentencing hearing… the scriveners’ error was discovered long before 2012 and it is therefore not a new fact.”
• “On May 7, 2014, Williams filed in the district court a ‘motion to correct record…”
• “He also sought resentencing without the career offender enhancement.”
• “The government opposed the motion as a second or successive 2255 petition for which he had failed to obtain the permission of this Court.”
• “On November 12, 2014, the district court denied Williams’ motion, stating ‘it lacks jurisdiction to hear it,’ but noted in the order that it ‘strongly recommends that the Bureau of Prisons, in classifying Andre Williams, take into consideration that [sic] he is not a ‘career offender’, and that the PSR incorrectly labeled  him as such.”

Andre Williams was born into a life and neighborhood where drugs and drug dealing was a way of life.  For whatever failures we have all had in contributing to that – that is the way it was.  He was dealing drugs. He wasn’t a kingpin, and he wasn’t violent.  An employee of the government made an error on a piece of paper, of which everyone from the judge on down is fully aware and has been from the day of sentencing.

The grandfather who was born without opportunity just wants a chance to see his grandkids play outside.  He’s never wanted much, nor expected much from life.  The government won’t let him go.  It doesn’t matter how many papers he files or how many times the courts say he shouldn’t be there, they find reasons to not let him go.

There is a letter dated June 6, 2016 and addressed to the U.S. Pardon Attorney, written by Judge Robert Gettleman.  In it, the judge states:

“Mr. Williams was sentenced to 40 years of incarceration based upon what this court and the government itself has acknowledged was an “incorrect” criminal history indicating that Mr. Williams was a ‘career offender’.

“In fact, the career offender status was the result of a scrivener’s error in the underlying state criminal proceeding, which indicated that he had pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, when in fact he had pled only to simple possession.  Although both this court and the government acknowledge this serious error in computing Mr. William’s then-mandatory Guideline sentence, because the judgment had become final there was no judicial remedy to correct it.”

It went on to say:

“For these reasons, the court strongly recommends to the Pardon Attorney and the President that Mr. Williams’ sentence be reduced to reflect the fact that he is not a career offender and that the Presentence Investigation Report erroneously labeled him as such.”

Twenty three years later, Andre Williams continues to serve the forty year sentence that was the result of an error on a report that everyone is aware of.   One might ask, why does the United States government not simply do the right thing and correct the error, allowing Andre the opportunity to watch his grandchildren grow up – it’s not much to ask.

RESOURCES:

Bogira, Steve. “Criminal Justice.” Chicago Reader, Chicago Reader, 19 Jan. 2018, www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/criminal-justice/Content?oid=893735.

Bogira, Steve. “Criminal Justice.” Chicago Reader, Chicago Reader, 18 Jan. 2018, www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/criminal-justice/Content?oid=893791.

United States of America v. Andre Williams.  14-3570. 21 U.S. Court of Appeals. 2015.