Pubdate: Sat, 15 Aug 2015
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Alan Schwarz
LETTER FROM OBAMA, AND NOW A SECOND CHANCE
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Rudolph Norris walked out of Morgantown federal
prison two weeks ago carrying a duffel bag like no other. First, he
had spent six months hand-stitching it himself from dozens of mottled
leather scraps, symbolizing the shards of his life he longed to piece
back together. Then he unzipped it and pulled out his invitation to try.
"Dear Rudolph," the letter began, "I wanted to personally inform you
that I have granted your application for commutation."
It was signed "Barack Obama."
Mr. Norris's 22 years behind bars over with the stroke of the
president's pen, he showed off the letter to his receiving crowd of
siblings, in-laws and, mostly, his all-grown-up daughter, Rajean, who
had wondered if she would ever again see her father out of an orange
jumpsuit. ("That's my daddy!" she said as he came into view, sounding
like the 8-year-old she had been back when he was sentenced.) Mr.
Norris hugged and cried and fist-bumped.
Then the ex-inmate, a newly minted symbol of second chances, rode the
family's rental van from West Virginia back to Maryland.
With a Letter From the President, a New Day for Rudolph Norris
Mr. Norris, who was granted clemency by President Obama along with
several other prisoners, has the potential to turn his life around.
He responded to the president with gratitude and a promise, writing
that "it feels as if the chains that I have been wearing for a long
time have suddenly been released."
Mr. Norris, 58, was one of 22 federal prisoners released on July 28
through a continuing bipartisan push to shorten the sentences of
nonviolent drug offenders who, during the war-on-drugs fervor of
decades ago, received punishments far lengthier than they would have
drawn today. The mass incarceration of those days crowded prisons at
great expense, and was found to have disproportionately penalized
minority crack-cocaine offenders like Mr. Norris, who was convicted
of possessing and selling the substance in 1992 and sentenced to 30
years in prison. The commutations, announced on March 31, preserve
the conviction but end the sentence.
One commutation went to a 65-year-old Kentucky man who had drawn a
life sentence for running a huge marijuana farm; six others were
freed from life sentences for cocaine-related offenses. President
Obama announced another round of 46 commutations on July 13 -
prisoners must wait three months for their actual release - and is
considering more.
Mr. Norris's winding, six-prison path to freedom followed early
resentment over his long sentence, fatalistic acclimation to a middle
age lived behind bars, and then 10 years in which he spent dozens of
hours a week in prison libraries learning federal drug law and
pursuing legal avenues to release.
His efforts foundered before Mr. Obama's clemency initiative saw his
case routed to a George Washington University Law School clinic and a
student who received it as a class assignment. Their serendipitous
work together, culminating in Mr. Norris's release, led prisoners and
wardens alike to call him the Miracle of Morgantown.
During his first days of freedom, Mr. Norris delighted in slurping
his first chocolate shake and fixing his granddaughter's Barbie
playhouse. He goggled at technology he had never used, from the
Internet to hands-free bathroom sinks.
But he also recognized the challenges so many recently released
prisoners face: finding work despite his record; getting his own home
rather than crashing in his brother's basement indefinitely; and
generally convincing a skeptical society that he is a changed man.
Not everyone will fly the yellow happy-face balloons that greeted him
at his big sister's welcome-home party the afternoon he arrived.
"He's going to be fighting for his life," said Courtney Stewart, the
founder of the Reentry Network for Returning Citizens, a volunteer
organization based in Washington that helps recently released
prisoners pursue employment, housing and mental health services.
"It's going to be hard as hell, but he has to be willing to do
whatever it takes. It's not going to be up to him what that is. He
won't decide how long he's going to have to do it. He'll have to have
some faith."
Mr. Norris immediately called his parole officer to learn his
responsibilities and pledge to follow them. (His clemency does not
vacate the eight years of probation to which he was originally
sentenced.) He applied for food stamps and, because all he had was
his Morgantown inmate card, pursued a more marketable driver's license.
His commitment to playing by the rules was so strong that he avoided
a day-labor landscaping opportunity because it paid in cash, and he
wanted to pay taxes like everyone else.
"As I navigate my way back to society and begin a productive life,"
he wrote to Mr. Obama in April, "one of the first and foremost
thoughts on my mind will be my solemn commitment to prove to you that
your faith in me was not at all misplaced."
Getting Out
Mr. Norris fit the requirements of the Obama administration's
clemency program almost perfectly: He had demonstrated model behavior
while serving at least 10 years for a relatively low-level,
nonviolent drug crime. The court's 1993 presentencing report stated
flatly, "There was no victim in this offense." Still, sentencing
standards of the time called for 30 years in prison.
Not that Mr. Norris's record had been exemplary before that. A
lifelong resident of hardscrabble northern Washington, D.C., he had
been convicted of seven crimes since he was a teenager, from
possession of marijuana to check forgery to robbery; none involved
violence or a weapon. He was in and out of prison until the
mid-1980s, when he held legitimate jobs - painting and rustproofing
cars, delivering water bed mattresses - but also made $7,000 a month
dealing crack cocaine, a drug so pervasive that even Washington's
mayor, Marion S. Barry Jr., was caught smoking it.
In 1992, police officers targeting Mr. Norris found 291 small bags of
crack totaling 29 grams in his Chrysler LeBaron convertible.
"I wasn't addicted to the drugs," Mr. Norris said during his van ride
back to Maryland, adding that he has not used any illegal substance
or alcohol since 1983. "I was addicted to the lifestyle."
Having had discipline issues during several earlier incarcerations -
including a fight in which he stabbed an inmate with half a pair of
scissors - Mr. Norris, then in his mid-30s, committed himself to
clean time and the development of work skills. He took a 4,000-hour
course as an electronics inspector, worked jobs like making furniture
and packaging recyclables, and had only three minor disciplinary
violations in 22 years, according to prison records. His behavior
earned him a 2012 transfer to the minimum-security prison in Morgantown.
Ribbed by younger inmates there as "Old Gangsta," Mr. Norris spent
several hours a day in the law library, poring over the Federal Rules
of Criminal Procedure and case law that might suggest some way to
shorten his sentence. (He said he received tutoring from a fellow
inmate, Matthew Kluger, a corporate lawyer serving 12 years for
insider trading.)
In April 2014, when the Obama administration announced its clemency
initiative, he sensed an opportunity.
But federal public defenders were not allowed to handle clemency
applications, so the lawyers who had represented Mr. Norris forwarded
his case to George Washington University Law School's Neighborhood
Law and Policy Clinic, which allows 10 students per semester to
assist inmates for class credit. A third-year student, Courtney
Francik, got the assignment last fall.
Ms. Francik, 27, a Harvard graduate from the Baltimore suburb of
Cockeysville, had heard from friends who had gone to law school that
their most valuable experience came from handling real cases in a
clinic, she said in a recent telephone interview. She signed up and
soon found herself engrossed, taking the unusual step of staying on
for the spring semester as well.
"I almost moved into the clinic building for Mr. Norris's case," Ms.
Francik said. "I couldn't wait to get to the clinic building in the
morning and start working."
Working closely with two lawyers at the clinic, Ms. Francik prepared
182 pages of legal and personal material to support Mr. Norris's
clemency application. Her enthusiasm and confidence during their one
face-to-face meeting at Morgantown, in November, along with phone
calls and numerous letters, so encouraged Mr. Norris that he began
sewing the leather bag he hoped to carry out of prison.
His application was submitted in mid-February, joining thousands of
others from inmates nationwide. They were evaluated by Department of
Justice lawyers, who recommended top candidates for White House
officials to cull. Mr. Obama reviewed data on each finalist, a White
House spokesman said, before using his constitutional authority to
commute their sentences.
In the early afternoon of March 31, a White House lawyer called the
clinic to say that Mr. Norris had become one of 22 people who would
be getting letters of congratulations from Mr. Obama. Ms. Francik
received a text and bolted from her class - Professional
Responsibility - to join the phone call alerting Mr. Norris, who
naturally was in Morgantown's law library. He burst into tears.
"I'm not going to die in prison," he recalled saying as he cried once
more. "I'm on my way home."
Mr. Norris spent the three-month wait for his release making sure he
did nothing to jeopardize his good fortune. (Although most inmates
were happy for him, a few resented his special treatment and tried to
provoke altercations, he said.) On the morning he left for good, he
told a crowd of hundreds of inmates seeing him off: "I'm not better
than you. I just had to grow up."
Getting Started
Walking toward his family in the parking lot, Mr. Norris wore heavy
gray sweatpants and heavier gray whiskers, some pounds having
migrated from his barrel chest to his belly, but still with the
muscular shoulders of his distant youth. (His brother-in-law
remarked, "Man, he looks good.") Mr. Norris's younger son, Raymond,
who could not travel to the reunion from New Mexico, received Mr.
Norris's first phone call and a promise: "It'll be my last game of
basketball - I'm going to show you what Daddy's got left and then retire."
The five-hour ride home, during which he took 34 calls on six
different family cellphones, included crucial stops for a Wendy's
chocolate Frosty and some outlet-mall sneakers. Having never used a
cellphone, he officially entered the 21st century when spotty
reception on Interstate 68 caused him to inquire, "Can you hear me now?"
Family members fought over who would buy him a wallet, a watch and a
jersey of his beloved Washington Redskins.
"Don't buy anything for me - wait till I work, I'll buy it for
myself," Mr. Norris pleaded. "I don't want to be no burden. I been
y'all's burden for 25 years."
At the welcome-back barbecue among two dozen family members in his
older sister's backyard, Mr. Norris destroyed a crate of hard-shelled
crabs brought just for him. He met his daughter's three children,
including 2-year-old Zuri, whom he hoisted on his shoulder and told:
"Can I have some sugar? I've been waiting to see you. This is all
your family. It's my family, too."
Mr. Norris's younger brother, Bruce, brought him back to his house in
Upper Marlboro, Md., where a new full-size mattress and several sets
of clothes awaited in the made-up basement room he will use until he
gets on his feet. The next morning, he showed that his playful side
had survived prison; he phoned Bruce and said frantically, "I messed
up the alarm and the police have me in cuffs outside the house!" only
to bellow in laughter afterward.
Mr. Norris then met his probation officer to learn the terms of his
supervised release: He may not leave the District of Columbia,
Maryland or Virginia for 60 days, must check in with her regularly,
and is subject to drug testing. A violation could bring its own
punishment, which could include jail, but would not affect his commutation.
A growing number of state and federal officials from both parties are
supporting measures to decrease the prison population by lightening
punishments for some drug-related offenders, who according to federal
data make up roughly half of the 1.5 million federal and state
prisoners. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 eliminated the five-year
minimum sentence for first-time possession of crack, and decreased
higher mandatory punishments for dealing crack with a prior criminal record.
The day after visiting the probation office, Mr. Norris met with a
social services agent who briefed him on more than a dozen state
assistance programs, including ones that offer free interview clothes
and health exams at the Wellmobile, a clinic on wheels that drives
around Maryland. Applying for food stamps meant his first attempt at
a technology forbidden in prison: the Internet. "I feel like a
5-year-old trying to learn this stuff," he said, poking hesitantly at
a keyboard.
As for the critical job hunt, the social services representative told
Mr. Norris that he has more skills than many people in his position.
Besides his experience painting cars and delivering packages, she
said, his electronics-inspection classes and exemplary prison work
record would encourage employers willing to look past his incarceration.
The question is how many of those there will be. Mr. Stewart, of the
association that aids ex-prisoners, said initial job searches
typically last between nine months and two years and tend to lead to
work that is custodial, or related to the restaurant or lodging
industries. One of Mr. Norris's brothers-in-law is a shuttle-bus
driver for a local hotel and will try to get him a job there, while
another looks into some gardening work.
"I'll take the lowest honest job out there - I just want to get
started," Mr. Norris said. "Society doesn't owe me anything. I owe
society for dealing drugs."
Getting On
A few nights after his release, Mr. Norris phoned the person he
credits most for his coming home: Ms. Francik, the student with whom
he had not spoken since she delivered news of his clemency three
months ago. She graduated in May and just started work as a public
defender in Shelby County, Tenn.
"Miss Courtney, y'all kept telling me I was a primary person the
clemency was about," Mr. Norris told her. "I kept hearing how
confident y'all were. That's what made me make it. Y'all were the
vessels to get me home."
"It was an honor, Mr. Norris - it really was," she replied. "I believe in you."
"I'm trying to get gainfully employed in a hurry," he said, "so I can
be able to provide and get my own place. I have the freedom to do
what I want to do as long as I do it right."
The two spoke for an hour. As the conversation wound down, Ms.
Francik told him, "I'm going to be back in a few weeks and the whole
clinic team wants to take you out to dinner. Wherever you want."
"I'll be dressed, pressed and at my best," he said.
Then he paused for drama, as if his story lacked any.
"But one thing," he said.
"What?"
"I'll have a job by then," he vowed. "And I'm paying for you."
Correction: August 14, 2015
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article
misidentified the man to the right of Rudolph Norris. It is his
brother, Bruce Wilkes, not his nephew, Elwood Miller.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom