Robert Booker admits that he didn't really need the money he got from drug dealing. He grew up in a two-parent, middle-class family in Detroit in the 1970s, and his job as a lifeguard for the city's parks department paid "good money." But the drug business paid more, and by the late 1980s nearly all of his friends were showing up to the pool with new cars and expensive sneakers. "I was smarter than the average cat, and I was like, 'If they could do it, I could do it easy,'" Booker said by phone on Monday from the Federal Correctional Institution in Schuylkill, Pa. "I left lifeguarding and started hanging around."
Twenty-five years later, at 47 years old, Booker is two decades deep into a life sentence in federal prison for three related, nonviolent drug crimes: possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine, and operating a "crack distribution house." Although a trial judge initially sentenced him to 20 years in prison, the prosecutor filed two separate appeals, ultimately triggering an automatic sentencing mechanism that forced a federal judge to send Booker to prison for the rest of his life.
Booker is one of more than 100 prisoners featured in an extensive new report from the American Civil Liberties Union on the rise of life sentences without the possibility of parole -- the harshest penalty faced by defendants in the American criminal justice system apart from death. Many such inmates are there "off the laws," as Booker put it, meaning they were incarcerated because of drug laws and not because they committed acts of violence. The report calculates that 3,278 prisoners were serving life without parole for drug, property and other nonviolent crimes as of 2012, comprising about 6 percent of the total life-without-parole, or LWOP, population.
The thousands of nonviolent crimes that have resulted in LWOP sentences include possession of a crack pipe, a smudge of heroin in a bottle cap, and "a trace amount of cocaine in clothes pockets that was so minute it was invisible to the naked eye and detected only in lab tests," according to the report. In each case, the defendant had previously been convicted of other crimes -- often decades-old and mostly of the non-violent variety.
Prisoners serving life without parole make up one of the fastest-growing populations in the prison system, according to the ACLU's analysis of data from the United States Sentencing Commission, the federal Bureau of Prisons and state corrections departments. The report attributes this rise partly to the prevalence of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws and other punitive drug policies embraced by lawmakers who hoped to define themselves as "tough on crime" in the '80s and '90s.
In recent years, the rhetoric that accompanied the passage of those laws has begun to shift, with legislators from both sides of the aisle introducing measures that would soften the country's approach to drug crimes. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) are just some of the more prominent figures to take up the cause in Congress, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called for sweeping, systemic changes to a "broken" justice system, directing federal prosecutors to step away from drug cases.
Not everyone hopes to see the justice system change course. At a recent Senate hearing on overcrowding in the federal prison system, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) both applauded tough sentencing laws, crediting those policies for the precipitous decline in the country's violent-crime rates over the last few decades. "It's hard to think of a more successful domestic policy accomplished over the last 30 years than the reduction of crime rates that we have," Grassley said.
The ACLU recommends that states and the federal government abolish LWOP sentences for nonviolent offenses and reduce the sentences of prisoners who are already serving them. "Life-without-parole sentences for nonviolent offenses defy common sense, are grotesquely out of proportion to the conduct they seek to punish, and offend the principle that all people have the right to be treated with humanity and with respect for their inherent dignity," argues Jennifer Turner, the report's author.
Booker has used his time in prison to study law and write crime fiction. He works as an administrative clerk in the kitchen, where he supervises other inmates. He tells them to get a GED or learn a trade, if only to "move on the time."
He regrets that he never got to raise his children -- "never got to play the tricks on my kids that my parents played on me," he said with a laugh. He has two daughters and two sons, who were all between 1 and 3 years old when he was sent away. He hasn't seen them in six years, though he speaks with them regularly. His oldest daughter, Shaprese, is studying criminal justice at Ferris State University in Michigan. "I help her with a lot of her homework," he said. "It's a hard way to learn, to have 20 years in the system. So I think I learned a whole lot."
Below are portraits of other prisoners who, like Booker, are serving life sentences without parole for nonviolent crimes, as detailed in the ACLU's report.
Before You Go
While in prison, Johnson has become an ordained minister and has served as a mentor and tutor for other inmates. “It feels like I am sitting on death row. Unless things change, I will never go home alive," she told the ACLU.
Raised in New Orleans, Metz was the youngest of nine children raised in New Orleans, and first became pregnant when she was 17. She is now a mother of two.
"To be away from my kids, to miss them growing up, to have to parent them over the phone and in the visitation room, to miss my daughter’s wedding, took a piece of me that can’t be replaced," Metz told the ACLU. "It’s a tragedy shared by women, children, families and communities across this country … leaving the kids to think they don’t have a hope in the world."
Now 48, Wilson seldom sees his three sons, who are now in their mid-20s, because they live in Texas and he's imprisoned in California. He suffered a stroke in 2011 and his condition has improved very little.
Even the judge in his case, Terry R. Means, had misgivings about putting Dunkins behind bars for so long. "It does seem unfair that the guidelines bind me to give you a life sentence," he said at sentencing. "It troubles me to think that you at your age [are] going to have to spend the rest of your life in prison. It troubles me a lot."
"It is very scary … to have to die in prison," Douglas told the ACLU. "We all have to die one day, but you would like to die around your family. You die in a place like this, you just die in a room by yourself. It’s terrifying to think that this could possibly happen to you."
Tyler first became a regular LSD user after high school, when he followed the Grateful Dead around to concerts and overdosed several times, resulting in some time spent in mental health institutions. He has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and came out as gay five years ago, and he says he feared being a target of violence.
"Life, [the sentence] says, but life means you die in prison," he told the ACLU.
Duke served in Vietnam and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. "I often thought I would probably die in a firefight in Vietnam, and then later, I thought maybe I’d catch a streamer while sky-diving and crash and burn," he told the ACLU. "Or perhaps, lose control of a car at a very high rate of speed, but never in my wildest dreams have I ever imagined I’d die in prison."
In 2002, at the age of 31, he was sentenced to mandatory life without parole under the Florida Penal Code.
"When he told me his story and that he was in prison for life, I could not believe it," one corrections officer who worked at Ortiz's prison told the ACLU. "There [were] inmates that were in for rape or killing someone that were getting out in 15 to 25 years. I had one inmate that was drunk and ran a stoplight, hitting a van and killing six people, including children, and only got 30 years, and he will be out in six years due to earning gain time. I kept thinking [that] something is wrong with this picture.”
His sentence is like a death sentence, but one without peace, Dekle told the ACLU. "There are correctional officers and inmates here that were not born when I started this sentence. How much more do they want? Is my death here the only thing that will satisfy society?”
"At the time, neither Clarence nor I had any idea of how harsh a penalty he would receive for this error," says his mother, Linda Aaron-McNeil. "When the judge announced the sentence of three life terms, my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. Since this nightmare began, I merely exist. The pain never subsides."
"The sentence … far exceeds whatever punishment would be appropriate. ... Unfortunately, it’s my duty to impose a sentence," Judge Clyde Roger Vinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said at Minor's sentencing. "If I had any discretion at all, I would not impose a life sentence. … I really don’t have any discretion in this matter."
His appeals process has been exhausted and his commutation petition was denied in February of this year. "I know what I did was wrong but I did not know any other way at the time, and I just wanted to be loved," Speal told the ACLU. "They gave us a death sentence because we made mistakes when we were kids."
"I will expire in the federal system," Jones told the ACLU of her sentence. It is really a slow death."
"I have been separated from my family for 17 years. I have watched our son grow from 3 into a young man of 22 through telephone calls and prison visiting rooms. My life partner since 1974 is now my ex-wife," Knock, who is known as "the professor" in prison, told the ACLU. "When a person goes to prison, the entire family pays the price. All do time of some sort."
"The court wrongfully took my life from me," Fields told the ACLU. "I felt like there was no help for me, and I was expected to die here in prison. And I still feel that … I’ll die here."
He says the trial judge told him he would be sentenced to 15 to 20 years, but that such a sentence would be reversed on appeal.
Cundiff now has a variety of health problems and requires a walker. "If I should die and go to hell, it could be no worse," told the ACLU.
Cesal owned and operated a towing and truck repair business for 23 years. One of his clients was a trucking company whose truckers trafficked marijuana.
Cesal was arrested for his alleged involvement in 2002, and believed he would get a sentence of seven years if he pleaded guilty. He later tried to withdraw his guilty plea because, he says, prosecutors wanted him to testify against people he didn't know and two people who he thought were innocent.
"In my case, those who did traffic marijuana received little or no prison sentences and resumed their activities. They patronize a different repair station now," Cesal told the ACLU. "I hope to die, sooner rather than later."
He was new to Miami at the time and struggled to find work. "At the time of my crime, I was willing to take a chance. Now that I know how a life sentence feels, I would never take a chance with my life," he told the ACLU.
"This is your first conviction … and here you face life imprisonment. I think it gives me pause to think that that was the intention of Congress, to put somebody away for the rest of their life," the judge said at his sentencing.
Wintersmith's commutation petition is pending, and his daughter has asked President Barack Obama to give him "a second chance at life."
The judge in his case counted the weight of the blotter paper on which the LSD was dissolved, upping the total weight and triggering the harsh sentence.
A George H.W. Bush appointee, the judge told Riley Congress was "keeping me from being a judge right now in your case, because they’re not letting me impose what I think would be a fair sentence." He later called the sentence the harshest he'd ever given and said it brought him "no satisfaction that a gentle person such as Mr. Riley will remain in prison the rest of his life."
Five hundred grams of marijuana were seized from him when he was arrested in 1996. His co-defendants testified against him to get reductions in their sentences.
"Since I was a child, I was taught that America was the land of redemption," Walker told the ACLU. "But if you are a first-time offender sentenced under a mandatory-minimum sentence, this is not the case. Prison probably saved my life. I just hope I can get out someday to live that life."
"When I came in, they called me 'the kid,'" he told the ACLU. "Now they call me 'pops.'"
While he was in jail, his 2-year-old son, Cole, was diagnosed with Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome, a rare immunodeficiency disease. Soon, Jackson owed $200,000 in medical bills, so he began transporting meth for a supplier. In 1995, he sold half a pound of meth to an undercover officer and received a mandatory minimum sentence of life without parole in a federal prison. Now 55, he has been in prison for 17 years.
Martinez says the alleged ringleader in his case, who ended up serving less than three years in prison, has admitted that she lied about the extent of his involvement in the conspiracy. All of his co-defendants have been out of prison for more than a decade.
The judge in Martinez's case said the federal sentencing guidelines put "more trust in prosecutors than in federal judges."
"No words could ever fully describe the pain within when you know that you will never spend any type of quality time with your children, for the rest of their lives," Martinez told the ACLU. "I wish that on no parent."
The judge wasn't allowed to consider George's minor role in the case. "Even though you have been involved in drugs and drug dealing for a number of years ... your role has basically been as a girlfriend and bag holder and money holder. So certainly, in my judgment, it doesn’t warrant a life sentence," he said at her sentencing. "I don’t really have any choice in the matter. ... If there was some way I could give you something less than life I sure would do it, but I can’t. Unfortunately, my hands are tied ... I wish I had another alternative."
Prior burglary convictions in 2006 and 2009 triggered South Carolina's three-strikes law, and Jackson, now 46, says he didn't understand the charges against him. "You will think that I kill[ed] someone with that kind of time," he told the ACLU.
"The world just got snatched out of me," he told the ACLU.
Because he had two prior convictions for crack cocaine possession and a conviction for possession of a firearm as a felon -- all crimes he committed between the ages of 18 and 22 -- he was subject to a mandatory life-without-parole sentence. Three higher-ups in the drug ring testified against Robinson and received reduced sentences of nine to 10 years in exchange for their cooperation.
