Parole Call
La Bodega Forges Alliance With Parole Officers to Help the Hidden Victims of Addiction

by Jennifer Gonnerman
Soon after La Bodega opened in 1996, Ana Nazario became one of its first clients.

At 7:30 a.m. last Thursday, Sabrina Drayton performed one of the basic duties of her job as a parole officer: visiting a prisoner's family to prepare them for his release. Seated on a plastic-covered sofa in a Lower East Side apartment, she told Francisco Caballero about the rules that will govern his son's life once he comes home. "He will have a 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew," Drayton explained. And "he's probably going to need a drug treatment program."
Caballero, the 54-year-old manager of a flower shop, already knows more about parole than most people. His 35-year-old son is a longtime addict with a lengthy rap sheet, which includes selling drugs and attempted burglary. "I don't want my son to go back to jail," Caballero told the parole officer. "It's a revolving door. I'm tired of it. I know the kid can do better."

Drayton often hears tales of frustration and fatigue from families who have struggled with a loved one's addiction. But in the battle to stop addicts from returning to prison, she has a weapon that few parole officers possess: La Bodega de la Familia, a nonprofit organization that helps addicts' families.

Since La Bodega opened in 1996, more than 500 families have come to its office on East Third Street near Avenue C. La Bodega takes an innovative approach to tackling addiction by targeting not only addicts but also their families. The program offers counseling, support groups, and a 24-hour hot line. La Bodega does not provide drug treatment or jobs, but helps clients navigate the city's nonprofits and government bureaucracies.

"When someone comes back from prison, it's incredibly chaotic for everyone," says Carol Shapiro, La Bodega's director, who was an assistant commissioner at the city Department of Corrections in the early 1990s. "Focusing on the needs, concerns, and feelings the family has before someone comes home allows a process of stabilizing that environment, so the family can be in a better position to support that loved one."

In the last few years, La Bodega's family-focused approach has become increasingly popular. Shapiro and her staff have a contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to do trainings about family case-management in Tucson, Newark, and Washington, D.C. And they will soon be helping train New York City probation officers.



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When she started La Bodega, Shapiro's first hire was Fred Weinberg. "The first six months were very tough," says Weinberg, who had previously worked at the State Division of Parole for 29 years. "We didn't have any clients. We didn't know, 'Were we going to be able to sell the program? Would we be able to link with parole, probation, the cops?' "

Armed with a stack of La Bodega brochures, he visited neighborhood schools, churches, and gardens. And he set up a table inside the nearby Lillian Wald Houses. Finding clients was not easy, especially since Weinberg, by his own description, is "a 65-year-old white guy who looks like he might have been a cop."

Today, La Bodega has four case managers and serves about 70 families at a time. Family members stream in and out of La Bodega's storefront all week long. Sometimes only one person shows up for counseling. Other times, five family members come in. At La Bodega, "family" is loosely defined, and so clients bring whoever is important to them—their friend, mother, girlfriend, or pastor.

Among La Bodega's earliest participants was Ana Nazario, who had a husband and two sons in prison. Over the years, La Bodega has assisted her with myriad problems, from writing a letter to the parole board on behalf of her son to helping ease the tensions that arose when her husband came home.

Case managers here also mediate family fights, help clients get into drug treatment, and accompany them to housing court. "Most of what we do here is letting them release their frustrations," says Tina Santiago, a family case manager. "We're here to be a support system for families who never had that before."

While La Bodega gets referrals from many sources, including probation officers and local cops, two-thirds of its clients are sent by the Division of Parole. In January 1999, the Division of Parole assigned three parole officers to work full-time with La Bodega. When these officers visit prisoners' families before their release, a La Bodega staffer tags along to encourage relatives to come to the program.

This close relationship with a nonprofit is unusual for the Division of Parole. "It's been a major shift in attitudes," Weinberg says. "I don't ever remember anyone being allowed to accompany a parole officer [on home visits], who is not in law enforcement."

Richard Levy, director of the Division of Parole's Manhattan and Bronx offices, seems pleased with the relationship. "Our experience has been very positive," he says. La Bodega's parole officers supervise about 35 parolees, which is half the average caseload. "This is a program that has tremendous potential," says Levy. But, he adds, "It's expensive to run."

La Bodega's annual budget of $1 million comes mostly from government agencies. The program is costly, but its director says her mission is not to create lots of La Bodegas. Rather, she says, she is testing an idea."We're not inventing a new service," Shapiro says. "We've invented a way to incorporate families into an already existing [process], and to help governments and nonprofits access them."

La Bodega's cozy relationship with law enforcement agencies makes some people uncomfortable. Ric Curtis, an anthropology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an expert on urban drug use, calls the relationship part of a "worrisome trend" in criminal-justice reform efforts, which extend law enforcement's reach into areas of people's lives not traditionally under its control. Still, Curtis says, he applauds Shapiro's effort. About La Bodega's approach, he says,"Especially in the Latino community, it's a useful perspective to take. It's definitely families that you're dealing with, not isolated individuals."

This summer, the first study of La Bodega's effectiveness will be completed. In the ongoing search for strategies to stop recidivism, the stakes have never been higher. An estimated 614,000 prisoners are expected to be released this year—compared with 561,020 in 1998. Studies by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that 40 percent of prisoners coming home return to prison within three years.

Caballero hopes his son will not become part of this statistic. The parole officer who stopped by his apartment warned Caballero what will happen if his son violates the terms of his parole—if he starts using drugs again or fails to show up for his appointments with her. "You know this is the first place I'm coming to look for him," Drayton said. "And I'm not coming alone."

Before the parole officer left the apartment, she asked where her parolee would be sleeping. Then she pulled out a pen and sketched a map. If she does have to arrest Caballero's son, she will likely come at night.

This time around, Caballero will have extra help keeping his son out of the streets. The father seemed grateful. "If you're going to be working with my son, anytime you need me you should call me," he said. "I'm willing to do anything for my son."

Straight Stories
In hard-edged doc, parolees struggle with life after prison

by Jennifer Gonnerman
August 2nd, 2004


How hard could it be to go straight after spending years in prison? Is it really that difficult to rebuild your life, reconnect with family and friends, and stay out of trouble? A Hard Straight—a riveting new documentary by first-time filmmaker Goro Toshima, screening at the Urbanworld Film Festival August 5 and 7—grapples with these questions by chronicling the lives of three people who left prison in Northern California in early 2001.
There's Regina Allen, 44, mother of three and longtime speed addict, who's been to prison twice, for forging checks and receiving stolen property; Aaron Shepard, 39, who spent two years in prison for robbery, then did almost twice as much time for violating parole; and Richard "Smiley" Martinez, 32, a talented artist who served seven and a half years for kidnapping and robbery, the last stretch in solitary confinement.

In many ways, Smiley is the movie's most compelling character. A veteran gang member from San Fernando, he is the most serious criminal of the three. He's also the most insightful. Toshima wins his trust, and throughout the film, he talks to Toshima's camera as if it's his psychiatrist. "I've been in the hole for a year and a half," he says, soon after his release. "I haven't seen TV or radio. I don't even know how to talk on the phone. Just being around people . . . "

Smiley doesn't finish the thought, but his initial discomfort around other people is evident. This is the legacy of going straight from solitary confinement to the street. Unlike the others, he spent his last 18 months locked alone in a prison cell around the clock, deprived of human contact. After receiving a welcome-home hug from a female friend, he says, "For me, that hug was . . . like the first hug I ever got in my life."

Toshima's camera follows Smiley as he reunites with an old girlfriend, drinks beers with fellow gang members, flouts parole's 8 p.m. curfew, finds his first-ever legitimate job (in an auto body shop), and pursues his dream of being a tattoo artist. His intelligence is apparent, but as his frustrations grow, it's easy to imagine he might end up back in prison. He leaves his girlfriend because he feels confined by her; he loses his job; he gets evicted.

Toshima, a 34-year-old Stanford film program alum, began researching this project in 2000, prompted by media reports that the U.S. prison population exceeded 2 million. The three homecoming stories he documents are even more timely now; U.S. prisons will release a record 650,000 people this year. Within three years, 40 percent will be back in prison. Academics, politicians, and government officials have long struggled with the question of why. Toshima, who shadowed his subjects for two years, has created an honest and intimate film packed with much needed answers.

Seizing the Spotlight

Jennifer Gonnerman

When Randy Credico is feeling bored or angry or anxious, he stands outside Brooklyn State Supreme Court and hollers at strangers. "Read about the racist Rockefeller drug laws!" shouted Credico, who is white, on a recent afternoon, waving photocopies of newspaper stories. "Spread the word! They're taking black children out of your neighborhood and putting them in Attica! This is a modern-day slave auction block!"
When he is not holding one-man protests outside courthouses, Credico is trying to build a movement to publicize what he believes are the injustices of New York's drug laws. For three years, Credico, a 45-year-old comedian, has been the project director of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. Despite having no full-time staff and an annual budget of only $50,000, he has managed to start a small but scrappy movement of drug prisoners and their relatives.

Acting as their press agent, Credico has drawn unprecedented attention to their plight, winning media exposure from virtually every major news outlet in New York:

• An anti-drug-law rally Credico organized in Albany in March 1999 generated nearly 40 newspaper, television, and radio stories in outlets from New York 1 to the Albany Times Union and the Syracuse Post-Standard.

• In 2000, Credico hooked up a New York Times reporter with Terrence Stevens, a wheelchair-bound drug prisoner who was serving 15-years-to-life. After the reporter wrote two columns about Stevens, Governor George Pataki granted him clemency. The inmate was released in January.

• Earlier this year, when the INS moved to deport Melita Oliveira, a drug prisoner who had just received clemency from Pataki, Credico got her story on Court TV, WABC-TV, and in three issues of the Daily News. In early February, the INS agreed to set Oliveira free while reconsidering her case. El Diario ran a photo of her release on its cover.

• From 1998 to 2000, Credico organized semiregular vigils at Rockefeller Center, which generated dozens of news stories in a wide range of media outlets, including Newsday, the Financial Times, the Daily News, BBC Radio, and The Charles Grodin Show on CNBC.

"He has been effective," says Jimmy Breslin, the Newsday columnist who, like dozens of reporters around town, hears from Credico every few days. "He's put it on people's minds." But "you can't write one [column] every day about the Rockefeller laws, which is what he wants."

Governor Nelson Rockefeller enacted the so-called Rockefeller drug laws, which require lengthy mandatory prison sentences for anyone convicted of a drug crime, in 1973. From its start, New York's drug war has been fought not only in the streets and courts, but also in the media.

Credico's side appears to be gaining ground. In recent months, there have been signs that drug-law opponents may finally succeed in convincing state legislators to soften the drug laws. Governor Pataki unveiled a detailed reform proposal in January. And leaders of both the assembly and senate have said that they too favor reform.

There is one major opponent of change, the New York State District Attorneys Association, but Credico remains confident. "It's a propaganda war," he says. "This is show business, and we have a much better act than the other side. They don't have a fucking act. Theirs is dead; it's stale. Ours is a quality show."



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When they first meet Credico, most people find it tough to take him seriously. Maybe it is the coffee stains on his jeans, the half-open fly, the chewed-up cigar in his shirt pocket, the unlaced sneakers, or the pin showing Mayor Rudy Giuliani sporting a Hitler-esque moustache. Or maybe it is because he seems to operate in overdrive—always manic, as if he just downed a few double espressos.

On a recent afternoon, Credico leaned back in a chair in the middle of his West Village office, pressed a phone to his ear, and worked himself into a lather. An Associated Press reporter was on the line. A few weeks earlier, Credico had steered the reporter to Denise Smith, who is serving a 10-to-20-year prison sentence for selling crack. According to Credico, she was an addict—not a dealer—and only guilty of passing along a couple $30 bags of crack.

"They should have put her in the hospital," Credico shouted into the receiver. "It's like having somebody with cancer out there. What was the point? It's a dirty thing for a cop to do. Just to pull that woman off the streets—a sick person off the street—and into prison? Now we're going to pay the tab and it's going to be up to $700,000 for 20 years when we could have fixed her by putting her into a treatment center for $12,000 a year."

A few days later, the reporter faxed over his story. Credico tossed it into a plastic bin overflowing with newspaper articles about the state's drug prisoners. Not all of the inmates Credico promotes are as sympathetic as he claims. (Another he mentioned to the Associated Press reporter turned out to have a federal conviction for possessing a gun while selling drugs.) But most of the headlines in his plastic bin tell Credico's side of the drug-war story: "Rockefeller Drug Laws Are Too Harsh, Protesters Charge," and "The Other Victims of the War on Drugs."

For years, drug-law-reform advocates relied mostly on data, reports, lobbying, and editorials to make their case against the Rockefeller drug laws. Favorite statistics include the fact that the state's prison population soared from 12,500 in 1973 to more than 70,000 in 2000, and that 94 percent of the state's drug prisoners are African American or Latino. Those most directly affected—the state's 21,000 drug prisoners and their families—had long been left out of this political debate.

Enter Credico, armed with a red Nokia phone, a 1500-minute plan, and 13 reporters' numbers programmed into his speed dial. "There was no way things were going to change without a street movement," he says. "There were a lot of people who worked on statistics, but it doesn't mean anything without a face on it. We needed human interest stories written. It's all show business; that's carrying on the tradition of Kunstler. Everything is tried in the court of public opinion."

Prosecutors complain that Credico plays fast and loose with his facts, and his aggressive style and unorthodox tactics have alienated some drug-law reformers. But few could dispute his success. As state legislators who support drug-law reform now try to sway their more conservative colleagues, Credico's stories of prisoners' woes have become invaluable. "They have been extremely effective in trying to personalize this battle, to show the human tragedies associated with the laws," explains Queens assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, a Democrat, who has led a fight to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws.

"Different people are moved by different [media] outlets," Aubry says. "Editorials are very helpful for one level of education, but when you get these stories in a smaller market in other regions [outside of New York City], it makes people think. And from a political point of view, it puts it on your radar screen."



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When he was growing up in California, Credico heard horror stories about prison every day. His own father had been a safecracker during the Depression and had spent a decade in an Ohio prison before Credico was born. Credico was reminded of his father's ordeal one night in 1997, while watching a debate over the Rockefeller drug laws on C-SPAN.

At the time, Credico was holed up in a $30-a-week hotel near Tampa, Florida, trying to kick his own drug habit. He had spent the last 22 years working as a stand-up comedian, once even performing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Performing at clubs along the Las Vegas strip, he had been introduced to cocaine in 1976; ever since, he had been battling addiction. Now, on C-SPAN, Credico watched Anthony Papa, who had just been released from Sing Sing, talk about spending 12 years in prison for possessing and selling four-and-a-half ounces of cocaine. When he returned to New York City, Credico tracked down Papa and took him out for a few rounds of margaritas.

Together, the comedian and the ex-con hashed out a strategy. Credico spoke about starting a street movement patterned after the Mothers of the Disappeared, the women who marched weekly at the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to draw attention to loved ones killed by military troops. In New York, Credico said, they could recruit drug prisoners' relatives and hold similar vigils.

"I thought he was—I don't want to say weird—I thought he was a little eccentric in a good way, in terms of thinking about things in ways that no one else was," Papa recalls. Looking back on all that has transpired since then, Papa says, "In that sense, he was a genius."

Fifty people and a handful of reporters came to Credico's first vigil, held at Rockefeller Center on May 8, 1998, the 25th anniversary of the Rockefeller drug laws. Back then, he had help from several other drug-law reform groups. Most of his fellow organizers thought the vigil should be a one-time event. Credico disagreed. He took home the garbage bag full of posters and began a seven-day-a-week campaign. He spent Friday and Saturday evenings at Columbus Circle, handing out flyers to the hundreds of relatives and friends boarding buses to visit prisoners across the state. As his literature circulated, Credico began receiving five to 10 letters a day from inmates.

Credico set about searching for the most sympathetic cases. He weeded out those who had a history of violent crime or long rap sheets. His system certainly was not foolproof, but he did find dozens of cases of prisoners with no prior records who had been sentenced to 15 or 20 years. (These inmates are the minority; only 611 of the state's 21,000 drug prisoners are convicted of A-1 felonies, which require sentences of at least 15 years.)

Every now and then Credico would hit the jackpot, like the day he received a letter from Terrence Stevens, a first-time offender who is nearly paralyzed from muscular dystrophy and was then serving 15-years-to-life for cocaine possession. Credico phoned Terrence's mother, Regina, who lives in East Harlem, and invited her to come to the vigils he continued to hold at Rockefeller Center. Regina, who was unemployed at the time, became one of Credico's most enthusiastic supporters, showing up at every vigil.

"I think he's a nut, but he's true to what he's doing," says Stevens, now a cafeteria worker at Chelsea High School. "He puts his all into it. It really touched me because he doesn't have anyone in prison, and he works just as hard, if not harder, than people who do. You just don't find that devotion."

Sometimes, Credico's vigils attracted only five or six people. Other times, the crowd would grow to 20 or 30. The small numbers bothered Credico less than the absence of reporters. If the media would not come to his vigils, he would schedule events where he thought they would be. He was often in Manhattan, holding demonstrations outside glitzy fundraisers for George Pataki or George W. Bush.

A day or two before, he would send out hyperbolic press releases, which were usually riddled with typos. "PATAKI, SUPPORTER OF ALLEGED COCAINE ABUSER GEORGE W. BUSH, LETS ADDICTS ROT IN NY PRISONS," stated one release. Another, from 1998, claimed that his three-month-old petition opposing the drug laws "already boasts 100,000 signatures." Asked if this figure was accurate, Credico says, "It looked like 100,000 until I started counting." What did it look like after he started counting? "About 13,000 or 14,000," he says.



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Terrence Stevens showed up at his first anti-drug-law rally on February 28, four weeks after he left prison. Credico had decided to hold the event in front of the office of Queens district attorney Richard A. Brown, who is defending the drug laws on behalf of the state's prosecutors. Credico sent invites to 200 prisoners' relatives, then hired Terrence to make follow-up calls.

"Terrence is now a huge weapon because he's smart," says Credico. "He's an MX missile. When you see him on TV, people are going to say, 'What the fuck are we doing? We spent $300,000 to keep that guy in a prison?' You do that to Hannibal Lecter. But a kid in a wheelchair? The guy did four more years than Sammy Gravano."

A few days before his rally, Credico sent out a press release accusing Brown of sending "countless" poor people to prison in what "many reform advocates label 'ethnic cleansing.' " Credico faxed the release not only to about 30 media outlets, but also to Brown's office. "I like to piss people off," he explains. His motto, he says, is "Educate. Agitate. Irritate."

Sixty prisoners' relatives and other supporters showed up at the noon rally. Many had worked double shifts, skipped classes, or scraped together cash for babysitters so they could stand in 30-degree weather and hold posters. It felt like a family reunion as Credico and the prisoners' relatives greeted each other with hugs.

Most of the protesters were rally regulars, including Anthony Papa, Regina Stevens, and Al Lewis, the perennial Green Party candidate who played Grandpa on the 1960s TV show The Munsters. There was also Hilda Garcia, 73, whose 68-year-old husband Jose, a first-time offender, died in prison while in the eighth year of a 15-years-to-life sentence. Credico had gone to Jose's funeral, organized a memorial vigil, and called a Daily News reporter, who wrote a column headlined, "A Loving Dad Dies in Prison."

"We are going to show the skeletons in the closet," Credico hollered toward Brown's office. "You are a fraud and this is a fraudulent prosecution of the laws. . . . Come out here and face your accusers!"

The audience for this show was a dozen police officers, plus whoever wandered by. There were also seven photographers, eight reporters, and four documentary filmmakers. After several prisoners' relatives took turns at the microphone, Terrence rolled forward in his wheelchair. Suddenly, all the photographers edged closer.

"There is so much suffering going on with the families that something needs to be done," Terrence said, as Papa held the microphone for him. "I have to be put on and off the toilet. I have to be bathed. . . . What kind of threat to society am I, to be warehoused in an upstate maximum-security state prison for 15-years-to-life?"

The next day, Credico would declare the event a success. Stories about the rally appeared in the Daily News, Newsday, and El Diario. Newsday also published a photo of Terrence. Ninety minutes after the rally began, nearly all the journalists had left. Credico seized the microphone.

"I want to thank everyone for coming out," he began, before being distracted by passing workers.

"You guys who are assistant D.A.s, get a real job!" he hollered. "Quit destroying lives!"

Turning back to his ralliers, he spelled out plans for future protests. "I want everyone to show up for the next one," he said. "You'll get a call from us."

He paused for a moment.

"OK, now I need $500 to pay for this sound system," he said, shoving a hand in his pants pocket. "Does anyone have $20?"

http://www.lifeontheoutside.com/

just so you know, this is a book Jennifer Gonnerman wrote...

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0527,gonnerman1,65565,6.html

The Juror and the Convict
Lynne Harriton was the jury foreman at Andre Smith's trial in the Carnegie Deli murder case. Now she's his closest friend.

by Jennifer Gonnerman
July 5th, 2005 2:55 PM

Memorial Day weekend 2004: Lynne's first trip to see Andre at Green Haven prison
photo: Courtesy Lynne Harriton
In the days after the trial ended, Lynne Harriton could not stop thinking about the man she'd convicted of murder. Her cheeks had been wet with tears when she announced the verdict in court on June 18, 2002. Afterward, she had returned to her job teaching English at a public high school, but in her mind the trial would not end. She kept replaying scenes from it, and worrying about the fate of the young man she had found guilty.
One year earlier, the crime had been front-page news, dubbed the "Carnegie Deli Massacre" by the tabloids. On the evening of May 10, 2001, two men had visited Jennifer Stahl, a former actress who sold marijuana from her apartment above the Carnegie Deli. By the time they walked out, Jennifer had a bullet hole in her forehead. Four friends of hers lay on the living room carpet, facedown, wrists and ankles bound with duct tape, each shot once in the back of the head. Two survived; Jennifer and two others did not.

The police named Andre Smith, 31, and Sean Salley, 29, as suspects in this triple homicide. Andre walked into the Midtown North station house 10 days later and denied any involvement. After cops grilled him for hours, he changed his story, admitting he'd gone to Jennifer's apartment to steal marijuana. He insisted that Sean Salley—whom he'd met a few days earlier—had shot all five people. It took cops nine weeks to track down Sean, who was hiding out in a homeless shelter in Miami.

Andre and Sean went on trial together with two juries; Lynne was the foreman of Andre's jury. She believed Andre had told the truth about not firing the gun. Indeed, even the prosecutor had stated during his closing statement that Sean had shot all five people. But Andre's jurors were not supposed to determine whether he'd shot anyone—only if he'd committed (or tried to commit) a robbery that caused a death. If the answer was yes, then he was guilty of murder. That is how the law works.

Lynne had no doubt that Andre was technically guilty; her concern was with the punishment he was about to receive. She thought he deserved 25 or 30 years in prison—a substantial amount of time, but fewer years than Sean. Reading the news coverage after the verdict, she began to worry that Andre would have to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

She sat down in front of her computer.

Dear Judge Berkman,
I write to beg you to show leniency in your sentencing of Mr. Smith. . . . Mr. Smith was not the gunman. He is not himself a killer. Information revealed by the state during the trial indicates that he was shocked and horrified by the actions of the gunman, that he felt remorse, sadness and shame. Please, Judge Berkman, you consistently showed such kindness and warmth to us. Could you afford this person some years of light at the end of his life?


Lynne sent the letter to the judge, the prosecutors, Andre's lawyers, and Andre. Then she went to Austria to take summer courses.

On July 29, 2002, Judge Berkman sentenced both Andre and Sean to the same amount of prison time: 120 years to life. This included 25 to life for each murder, plus additional years for robbery and gun possession. The judge gave them the maximum punishment by stipulating that the sentences run one after another rather than concurrently.

Lynne was still in Austria when she opened an e-mail from one of Andre's lawyers and learned about his sentence. Immediately her stomach began to hurt and her hands felt clammy. The next day she found herself leaning over the toilet bowl, her body racked by dry heaves.

Soon a sense of rage started to take over—rage at the judge and the prosecutors. "There's a difference between pulling a trigger five times and not pulling a trigger even once," she says. "I had the feeling that I had participated in something that was wrong. Can you imagine walking out of there after five weeks and feeling like there's a stain on your soul? I felt like, how could I rectify this? How was I going to help?"

After she got home in mid August, she received an envelope from one of Andre's lawyers, with a letter from Andre, who was still at the Queens House of Detention. At the time, Lynne had no way of knowing what sort of role the man she had convicted of murder would come to play in her life—and what sort of role she would play in his. Back then, three years ago, she never could have imagined that someday she would become Andre Smith's closest friend.



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Andre's two lawyers, both from Legal Aid, had employed a mistaken-identity defense during the trial, claiming the police had arrested the wrong guy. It was a tough argument to make since the prosecutors had a signed confession from Andre, his fingerprint on a piece of duct tape, a surveillance video, and eyewitness testimony from the two surviving victims.

Despite his conviction, Andre insisted in his first letter to Lynne that he was an "innocent man." He complained that even if the judge had given him just 25 years, he'd still be stuck behind bars for the rest of his life. Lynne disagreed.

Dear Mr. Smith—or may I call you Andre?
I've worked with many troubled and/or disadvantaged young people and I always saw you as someone who could have passed through my classroom a few years ago—and as someone I would have tried to "reach" . . .

I don't see you as completely innocent in this situation, but I don't see you as a murderer either. It was easy to see that it was you on the video. You have to remember that I sat there and looked at you all day long 3 days a week for 5 weeks. I don't think I've ever looked at anyone that much in my life. I was familiar with the indents in your forehead, the size of your ears, the width of your neck, the slope of your shoulders, the way you move. There's more. The shape of your hairline, the far-apartness of your eyes. . . . I knew it was you. But I also knew you weren't the killer.

You said in your letter that even a concurrent sentence would have put you in jail for 25 years. It is true, it would have. And I think if I was 31, that 25 years would seem the same as 120. But I'm not 31—and I can see perhaps more clearly than you what a difference that would have made. I'm 50—I'll be 51 in November. And in no way do I feel that my life is over. Even in 5 years when I'm 56, I will still have 25-30 years ahead of me full of plans and ideas and passions and travel and sunshine and laziness and mud between my toes . . . (or sand, or grass . . . )

So, this is what I was hoping for you. I know it doesn't seem like much, compared to what no jail would be, but I don't know what to say about that. I wish my contribution would have helped you get those 25 years. I think you deserved at least that. I feel that I was used by the political system. I wish there was something I had done differently that would have changed the outcome. Logically I know this was not my fault, but I still feel very sad. And I want to offer you some friendship.

I'd like to know about your childhood, your children, your life & your previous dreams for it, about where you are now, what it's like—your thoughts about anything, I guess. . . . I want to encourage you to write. Reach for the right words—try to describe your world. I don't know why, but writing helps. It always helps. I will send a dictionary and a thesaurus if you would like. . . . Again, I look forward to hearing from you. I really do.



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A few weeks later, Lynne received a letter from Downstate Correctional Facility, the first stop for men entering the New York State prison system.

Care to take a journey into my world— August 27, '02. The day I depart from NYC to prison, 4:30 a.m. I was awoken by the sounds of keys singing and an officer opening up my cell bars telling me, "Pack it up, you're headed upstate." 5 o'clock. A captain escorts me downstairs. I go into a holding pen where I am fed breakfast, four slices of bread, one milk and oatmeal cereal. 5:30 a.m. Finger printed, mugshot, handcuffed, and put on a city correction shuttle bus to Rikers Island to be put on another bus. This time it so happens to be [with] a tribe of individuals cuffed and shackled going to the same location as me, the lost world.
While traveling through the interstate, I gazed out the window, soaking up the magnificent view of cars passing by, trees looking so beautiful and calm grass freshly green, animals attending to everyday nature activities. A sight I will no longer [be] able to enjoy unless I view it from a television screen. . . .

One hour has lapsed, the gate finally starts to open, the bus pulls into its loading dock, the sound of the engine shuts off and the gates slowly shut. One by one the cuffs and shackles are removed and we are told to step into a huge holding cell occupied with a toilet and sink. Numerous officers approach. "Turn around, place your hands on the walls, and spread your legs out open." All your clothing has to go either in the trash or [be] sent home, however, you are allowed to keep all legal work and religious articles.

A doctor/nurse comes and asks you questions about your medical history. After questioning, you step back into the holding cell. You are fed, given a shower, haircut, and shave, issued state greens with boots and tennis shoes, assigned a housing unit along with a cell, locked in until the next day.

7:00 AM the next day begins with a stand-up count, fully dressed standing by your cell, served breakfast in the mess hall, off for more testing, medical, TB, chest X-rays, eye examination, shots, etc. Back to your housing area, locked in til chow, the same thing continues, more testing education this time, talk to a counselor who tells you your classification level, back to your cell.

There you have it—some insight on what happens when you enter prison reception. . . .

Lynne: You write beautifully. Your descriptions are completely involving—I can see through your pen. I have been teaching for 10 years; few of my students have that sense of writing, that ability to enable me to see—and to hear their voices as I could hear yours. Your descriptions are really vivid—you move from observations to thoughts and back to observations again really skillfully. You use sound descriptions as well as visual. . . . You can't teach this! I hope you are writing every day.



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Lynne Harriton, at her apartment in midtown Manhattan
photo: Shaune McDowell
Lynne had never been one to believe in fate, but there were so many coincidences with this case that she imagined they were signs telling her to stay involved. The crime had occurred in her neighborhood, just two blocks from her home; she'd been the very first person picked for Andre's jury; after the trial, she'd discovered that the mother of one of her students was a close friend of Jennifer Stahl; and she had learned that one of her neighbors used to buy pot from Jennifer.

Throughout the fall and into the winter, letters traveled back and forth between Lynne and Andre.

Lynne: Let me tell you a little bit about myself. Oddly, I live on West 55th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues, not far from the Carnegie Deli. I have lived here for 26 years. I have a 2-bedroom apartment. . . . I'm an identical twin and my sister is an assistant principal at a high school in Brooklyn. We grew up in Pennsylvania—near Delaware Water Gap, and our parents still live out there. I am very lucky that they are still alive and still together.
Andre: My childhood was basically normal besides both my parents were not actually there. My brother and I were raised by our grandmother. She was a wonderful lady, who didn't tolerate no mess from us or others. She was strict as hell. . . . I don't care if you were someone else's child, she'll chastise you as well, so children in our neighborhood who knew Ms. Freida did not give her back talk.

Fifty years before Andre was incarcerated for the Carnegie Deli murders, his own mother was born in a New Jersey prison. That was in 1952, when his grandmother Freida was 17 and serving time for "incorrigibility." Two decades later, Freida took custody of Andre and his brother Tyrone, raising them in an apartment in Newark. She never talked about her time in prison, but she always preached the importance of staying out of trouble. She attended classes at Essex County College and paid the rent by doing maintenance work at the local courthouse.

Andre occasionally saw his mother, but he didn't call her Mom or Ma. Instead, he called her Sharon or sometimes just Sha. She seemed more like a sister than a mother. He never saw her shoot heroin, but he knew she was an addict. He also knew she supported herself by shoplifting; her favorite loot was $100 dresses from department stores in Manhattan. "Why are you doing that?" he asked one day, when they went to Macy's and she started shoving clothes into bags.

His childhood memories include spending time with her in a jail visiting room on Rikers Island and tagging along when she went to her methadone clinic in the Village. When Andre was a teenager, she began showing the symptoms of AIDS; he started bringing her to emergency rooms whenever her condition worsened. By the end of 1989, Freida was sick, too. She'd suffered a stroke and a heart attack. Andre spent his days shuttling between two hospitals?one in Newark, the other in Union City?to visit his mother and grandmother.

His mother died at the end of 1989 at age 37. Six weeks later, his grandmother died too. She was 55. For both of them, Andre helped make the funeral arrangements and pick out the caskets. At the time, he was 19.

By then Andre already had a rap sheet. He'd been selling marijuana and cocaine for a few years, even though he knew his grandmother did not approve. At one point, she'd even refused to give him and his brother Christmas presents. "Since y'all are going to sell that poison, buy your own gifts," she'd said.

In 1990, five months after Freida's death, Andre was arrested and charged with cocaine possession. While this case was pending, he got arrested again; this time police said he had 140 vials of crack. He pleaded guilty in both cases and spent a total of 20 months in a New Jersey prison. He was released on parole in the spring of 1993.

Two months later, he stuck up a coke dealer in Washington Heights with a .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Nobody was injured. Andre spent three years in a New York prison, then four more years in a New Jersey prison for violating his parole.

At one point, he and his brother were in the same medium-security facility in Camden. (Tyrone was serving time for manslaughter.) According to Andre, the two shared a prison cell for seven or eight months.

Lynne: You write with such sensitivity about your grandmother, this woman who worked so hard to raise you right. And she produced a young man who respects her values and appreciates her efforts totally (you). Yet something went wrong. Can you put your finger on it—when, where, what happened? What was going on that you dropped out of school in the eleventh grade? Something must have been appealing to you, tugging you toward another direction.
Andre: The fast money I made went to my head. Stopped listening to my grandmother. Eventually I went to live with my aunt, went back to school, but Newark kept calling me back (the block). Needed money to keep up with the others. We wanted to be like the other kids in our neighborhood—sneakers, jeans, leather hip-hop coats.



Andre left prison in the beginning of 2000, and this time he decided to go straight. By now he was 28 and had four children—ages 13, 12, 12, and eight—with three different women. He moved in with his girlfriend Keasha and their eight-year-old son in Irvington, New Jersey. He'd earned his high school equivalency diploma in prison, and now he enrolled in a technical school, where he took classes in accounting, business math, and spreadsheet management.

Over the next year, he held several low-wage jobs: security guard in a Newark homeless shelter, dishwasher in a Maplewood retirement home, forklift operator in a warehouse. To make extra money, he worked weekends selling hot dogs from a cart he parked in front of a barbershop. He also tried to be a good father and spent a lot of time with his children, taking them roller-skating and to the movies.

Despite his good intentions, Andre continued to find trouble. He hung out with friends he'd met in prison. He got arrested twice for drug possession. He got shot in the leg. Then, on January 1, 2001, he slipped on an icy sidewalk and broke his femur. He had to have a rod inserted in his leg and could no longer push his hot dog cart around. Making a living suddenly became much more difficult.

In February 2001, Keasha gave birth to his fifth child, DéAndre. Andre continued to go to school and was on track to graduate in June. In May, he applied for a job with a hazmat cleanup crew. He doubted he would get the job because he heard another applicant had more experience. While he was waiting to find out if he'd been hired, he agreed to participate in one more robbery.

His decision would ultimately end three people's lives and destroy many more, including his own.






Lynne Harriton was the jury foreman at Andre Smith's trial in the Carnegie Deli murder case. Now she's his closest friend.


Andre [now in Clinton prison]: Hold up. I see a roach crawling on the wall. Gotta get it outta my cell. Those things give me the creeps. Birds are incarcerated here also. They fly back and forth. A lot of people feed the birds. You can see them zooming by. They're probably playing, but if they had realized they are in prison, off they would be. Right now I wish I had wings. Fly right up out of this hell hole.
Lynne: I am sitting in Central Park on a bench in a little enclosure (where the free concerts are in the summer). It is the first beautiful day in a long time. Light breeze, golden sunlight, maybe 70 degrees. Young men throwing footballs, dogs padding about, clumps of people everywhere with their grateful faces to the sun. The earth is still brown, no buds on the trees, but it's the kind of day where you know, finally, that all of this will change. There's a little toddler, arms open, stumbling towards a dog laughing. Like your little boy, I bet.



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It had been Sean Salley's idea to rob Jennifer Stahl. Sean, who had once been a roadie for George Clinton, met Jennifer a few years earlier through contacts in the music industry. A mutual friend introduced Andre to Sean, and Sean told him about Jennifer's pot operation. On the evening of May 9, Andre and Sean checked out their target, paying a visit to Jennifer's apartment. The next night, Andre picked up Sean, and they returned to the apartment once again.

The plan was to get in and out quickly—and to make some easy money. Andre pulled a .38-caliber revolver out of his pants and ordered everyone onto the floor. While Sean duct-taped Jennifer's friends, Andre went into a side room with Jennifer and ordered her to hand over her marijuana and money. She filled a backpack with $1,000 and three ounces of marijuana.

Andre returned to the living room and took over the taping from Sean. Soon Sean got possession of the gun. (Andre says he put the revolver on the floor and Sean picked it up; the prosecutor said Andre handed it to Sean.) Revolver in hand, Sean returned with Jennifer to the side room. Moments later, he pulled the trigger.

"What the **** you do that for?" Andre shouted. He grabbed the backpack and hurried to the door. As he fumbled with the locks, he heard more shots. Looking back, he watched Sean fire again. Sean had shot each person once in the back of the head. Andre yanked the door open and they fled down five flights of stairs. A surveillance camera in the stairwell captured their escape—and showed that they'd been in the apartment for only six minutes.

When Lynne thinks about these minutes—and about Andre's role in the homicides—she often thinks about Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Dear Andre,
I want to tell you a little about the Holocaust. . . .

What happened in the Holocaust did not happen as much because of the evil of the Nazis as people would like to believe. The Holocaust happened because for years the German people did nothing to stop them. Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 and started making laws—laws that fired Jewish university professors, postal workers, lawyers, pharmacists. Laws that said Jews couldn't go to parks, go swimming, attend public schools, on and on.

By 1939, the Nazis were a monstrous machine—and the Jews were being shipped to slave labor camps (that by 1941 had become death camps) in Poland. Later on, when the war was over in 1945, the German people had to look back and see what they had done. Here was all this proof—gas chambers, crematoria, camps piled high with bodies of starved people. "What had they done?" the German people asked themselves. "But we didn't do anything! We did nothing. Why are you blaming us?"

When bad things happen, there are 4 categories people can fall into. They can be victims. They can be perpetrators, they can be bystanders—or they can be rescuers. The role of the bystander is what the Germans in WWII forced everyone to think about.

When bad things happen, simply not participating is not enough. Bystanding is not a neutral position. By going about their daily business, they let the Nazis take over.

In a wrenching process of recognition, they looked at their reasons for looking the other way. Certainly not every German person, but many went over what they didn't do, what they could have done. And they said, "We, the German people, accept responsibility for the Holocaust. If we had acted otherwise, there is no way this would have happened." And they paid. They are still paying.

So the question of guilt becomes more complicated.

Andre, can you make any correlations between this situation and your own?

I think it is terribly important. Put yourself in the role of the German people, Sean Salley in the role of the Nazis and the 5 young people in that apartment as the Jews.

What do you come up with? Match the people to those roles—perpetrator, victim, bystander, rescuer. Where does everyone fit?

What does this make you think about? Write to me as you do this.

Andre often wrote to Lynne about his crime, but he did not immediately follow her instructions. Lynne, meanwhile, continued to use the Holocaust to try to prod him into taking more responsibility.

Andre: I never ever wanted to be a part of a heinous cowardly crime. I am not an angel nor a bad guy. I know I don't deserve 120 years just as well as those people didn't deserve to die . . .
Lynne: I think you are totally right when you say you are neither an angel nor a bad guy—you are like all of us. But at that crucial moment, only an angel would do. . . . To wrestle the gun from Sean's hand, or to stay and help the victims as Sean fled down the stairs, or to run straight to the police station. This and only this would have made the difference. And this and nothing less is what the judge seems to have been asking for.

Lynne's mother grew up in Düsseldorf, Germany, then fled from the Nazis and came to New York in 1938. In 1997, Lynne discovered that her mother's family is related to Peter van Pels, the teenager whom Anne Frank fell in love with (and wrote about) while she was in hiding. He died at a concentration camp in Austria in 1945. Learning of her family's connection to van Pels fueled Lynne's interest in the Holocaust. She read dozens of books on the topic and visited Majdanek, Auschwitz, and Treblinka. In recent years, she has used the Holocaust in her classroom to teach 10th-graders about morality and ethics.

The Holocaust was the prism through which she saw not only Andre's crime, but also her own involvement in his life. A "bystander" might have felt badly about how long his sentence was, then moved on; a "rescuer" would stay involved, trying to do what she could to remedy the situation.



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When Andre finally did address the concept of the "bystander," it seemed Lynne's Holocaust paradigm made little sense to him. I reread it several times, trying to put myself in their shoes (the Germans) but I can't. My situation is totally opposite. What happened was done because one wanted it to. That's the way I see it.

The "one" was Sean Salley. More than two years after the crime, Andre was still obsessed with Sean, still enraged about how Sean's actions had affected his life.

I had a dream about that piece of **** (S.S.) who ruins lives. In my dream, he was wearing a clown outfit, laughing at me, saying, "I took you down with me." Instantly I reacted by grabbing that nigga around his mutha ****ing neck and choking him. He continued to laugh at me and repeat the above words over and over again. Next thing I know he vanished. I awoke to find myself angry, in a cage. It was difficult for me to go back to sleep, so I just sat up on the bed and started to rock back and forth. After damn near rocking for half an hour in rage, I rocked myself back to sleep.
Lynne: Listen. You're wasting your time with all that fury at Sean Salley. . . . Why do you do this? Just hate Sean? It's like you are allowing your hatred of him to act as a shield from the more complicated realities of the case. . . . If Sean had gone alone, would he have been able to have accomplished this armed robbery? Would those three people be dead?

In the fall of 2003, 15 months after their correspondence began, Lynne saw her work start to pay off.

Andre: Every single god damn day in my prayers I sincerely ask the creator of the heaven and earth to please forgive me for being with a stupid ass nigga who killed people. I also take responsibility because if I would've never went, regardless of why, those people would probably still be alive. I blame myself for going with someone I knew nothing about.


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Nobody came to visit Andre at Clinton prison, which is in Dannemora, a few miles from the Canadian border. At first, he received letters from many people: Lynne, Keasha, the other two mothers of his children, an aunt, a cousin, a few friends, his brother, and the social worker from Legal Aid who'd worked on his case. To stay in touch with his children, he used the mail and the phone. One day, DéAndre, now two and a half, recited his ABC's and the numbers one through 20. Andre shared the news with Lynne: I gave him plenty of kisses, Y-e-a-h-s through the receiver.

Andre likened his predicament to the movie Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray lives the same day over and over again.

Today is just another beautiful day for me to be stuck inside a cage. I'm actually debating on what I should do with myself, either do my laundry, read a book, practice on my crochet, flick through my photo album, clean up the cage again, brush my teeth for the third time today, play the yard, run somebody's phone bill up, or just relax and go to sleep . . .
Andre's prison routine also included visiting the law library, playing cards, studying the Koran, and praying five times a day. With money from two ex-girlfriends, he got a black-and-white television for his cell. Lynne sent him books: Black Boy, Native Son, The Color of Water, Push, Crime and Punishment. Andre read all of them, except Crime and Punishment.

Andre did not have his freedom, of course, but he had one thing that Lynne did not: time. He sent her a letter every week or two, trying to write slowly in order to postpone the inevitable realization that he didn't have much else to do. Lynne was the opposite, scribbling as fast as she could. She carried a half-written letter in her bag at all times, pulling it out to add a paragraph or two whenever she had a few minutes. Finishing one letter could take her four or five weeks.

While Lynne often wrote about the future—about holiday plans, an upcoming trip—for Andre the past was a much more pleasant subject. It was the everyday activities he missed the most, like shopping at Pathmark with his girlfriend. The store would be packed with people, [the] lines to reach the cashier long. Keasha used to be in a different aisle, searching for a particular item. I used to yell real loud across the floor, "Babe I love you, will you marry me?" Everyone in the store would stop [and] look in her direction.

On Saturday mornings at the laundromat: I enjoyed doing it, removing clothes from this machine to that machine, folding my newborn's clothing as well as his brother's. The females would come up to me, saying, "Damn, I know your girl is proud to have you," as they watched me fold some woman's panties and bra, putting them on a pile with the others. I laugh and cry inside now because I wash my clothing out of a dishpan I bought off commissary.

Andre got a job in the prison tailor shop, sewing green uniform shirts for other inmates. Lynne, meanwhile, was still teaching English at an alternative high school in Queens. She confided in Andre about her frustrations—inadequate computers, tensions with her boss, $150 stolen from her by her students.

Lynne: It's been a tough couple of weeks. Somehow, magically, I lost ALL my good students and they put in these jokers who had probably been in the hallways and therefore hadn't chosen an elective. Class now dominated by these out-of-control infantile basket cases. The few kids who were properly placed in the class took one look at the parade of jokers entering the room and were insulted, demanding to be taken out.
Andre: Hey, unfortunately it's too damn bad that you cannot save the world. I thought you knew that by now, silly. Select those who are willing to be taught and sprinkle knowledge in their surrendering minds. Never know—the others might tend to participate.



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Eventually Andre found a new way to start his letters. In the beginning, he'd written "Dear Ms. Harriton," then changed to "Dear Ms. Lynne." Now he wrote "Dear Ma." Lynne, who is single and doesn't have children, loved the title—and embraced the role. She sent Andre a pair of winter boots, corrected his grammar, praised his best sentences, and sent him Christmas and birthday cards that he could mail to his kids. She gave him parenting advice, telling him to read the same books his children read in school, then discuss the books with them over the phone. And she sent him chocolate bars she'd picked up on a trip to Germany.

I was thinking that good chocolate is so heavenly that if you got some of the best chocolates in the world every month, you'd have seconds, minutes of pure bliss, pure freedom—like Lindt or Godiva or Belgian chocolate. When I eat good chocolate (not Hershey's) I shut my eyes and little balloons of delight go off in my head.
On February 9, 2004, Andre transferred to Green Haven prison in Dutchess County, a 90-minute drive from midtown Manhattan. Shortly after, on Memorial Day weekend, Lynne visited. It was the first time she'd ever stepped inside a prison. They talked nonstop for four hours.

Ma, when I had approached the visiting room at first, I had butterflies all inside my stomach not knowing what to expect from a lady who seems to envision hope for me better than I do. Well, once we started kickin' it (talking), the butterflies had disappeared and I instantly felt relaxed. . . . I must say this before I go any further and that is you're a WONDERFUL lady.
Lynne: How grateful I am that you see and appreciate who I am. . . . Listen. I am NEVER giving up on you. Never. Do you understand? And I don't want to have to explain it. That's it. That's the way it is. And anyone who wants to be part of my life is going to have to understand. How? When I don't want to explain? Ha. I don't know. Til later, then, my dear friend. I have to rejoin the land of the brittle.



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Andre turned 34 years old in February 2005. Despite his young age, the prospect of dying never drifts far from his mind. He worries about losing contact with his friends—and about being buried on prison grounds someday with all the other inmates who have nobody to claim their body. He told Lynne that if he died before her, he wanted her to make sure he had a proper Islamic burial.

Andre: It's better knowing you'll die in jail sooner than later. I'm actually prepared to die now. The only reason I'm not dead now is because a person who kills themselves without a cause is surely doomed to go straight to hell.
Lynne: Please don't do anything stupid—like put your life in danger in unnecessary confrontations or committing suicide.

In early 2005, Andre put in a request to transfer to a prison north of Albany. It was a trade-off: He'd get fewer visits if he moved farther away, but he would be able to have a television in his cell—which he wasn't permitted at Green Haven. Lynne saw this as a sign that he was giving up; she worried he'd retreat into his cell and cut himself off from the outside world.

Lynne thought she had a better idea. She'd read a story in The New York Times Magazine about a college program for inmates at Eastern prison, run by Bard College. She clipped the story and mailed it to Andre. You cannot leave Green Haven unless it is to switch to Eastern where you can pursue a college education. Period. Rescind your move request.

Andre is not eligible for parole until 2112. He will only get out of prison if some sort of miracle occurs—if his appeals lawyer wins a substantial sentence reduction, or the law about felony murder changes. Despite the seemingly impossible odds, Lynne remains hopeful that maybe the law will be changed and Andre will be released in 25 or 30 years. A few months ago, she decided to try to track down the rest of his jurors in the hopes of perhaps enlisting their support. So far she's spoken with four, but has not convinced them to join her cause.



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When Lynne goes to Costco nowadays, she shops for two, buying extra food for Andre—cans of boneless salmon, sardines, tuna, chicken, plus trail mix and whatever else she thinks the prison guards might allow in. Andre receives less mail from friends and relatives than he did when he was first locked up; Lynne is now his strongest connection to the outside world. Every month, he calls her on the phone and sends her a few letters. If he doesn't hear from her for a month or two, he pleads with her to hurry. I know you have a life to live but try to squeeze me in there somewhere p-l-e-a-s-e, letter wise. I miss reading your thoughts.

On Sunday, May 22, 2005—three years after she was picked to be the foreman of his jury—Lynne made her fifth trip to Green Haven. She brought a bag of canned goods plus several chocolate bars she'd picked up on a recent trip to Spain. In the visiting room, the two spoke for nearly two hours, covering all the usual topics: his children, her job, his request for a transfer. She tried to convince him to apply to Eastern's college program, but he didn't make any promises.

The visit ended with a long embrace, and as they parted, she looked even more upset than he did. "Please be happy," he said. "If you're sad it's even harder on me."



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Two days later, Lynne sat down in front of her computer once again.

I know you think my optimism is unrealistic. It may be, but what else do we have? It keeps me working and as yet I've seen no reason to give up. . . . Please start to imagine what going to college would be like, what you'd learn, how you'd grow as a person who is still alive in this life, how your interests would expand, and how your kids would see this and expect it for themselves . . .
I promise to have more fun and to live life more joyfully if you will promise to keep the idea of a real, top-notch college education (which Bard would provide) alive in your mind, alive like a flower, alive like the sunlight, alive like all the memories of all the places your children will one day go and where you will accompany them through the power of language . . . and maybe in actuality, as the law that put you away could, should, be changed. . . .

See you next week.

My love to you,

Ma (aka Lynne)





More by Jennifer Gonnerman
Tracking Shots

The Juror and the Convict
Lynne Harriton was the jury foreman at Andre Smith's trial in the Carnegie Deli murder case. Now she's his closest friend.

http://www.lifeontheoutside.com/

just so you know, this is a book Jennifer Gonnerman wrote...

And I thought it was a great book! I cannot talk form personnal expereince but I thought it was very well written and she really seem to understand Elaine Bartlett. I thouroughly recommend it if you are interested inthe topic.