Our constitution guarantees every United States citizen, a fair and impartial trial, effective assistance of counsel, equal protection and due process of the law. However, these guarantees are about the size of your wallet. Without money, you’ll likely do prison time. Mass incarceration means just that.
Nonetheless, I believe this may be the best time in the United States history for making the playing field level. In 2012, the outgoing Mississippi governor Haley Barbour expressed this sentiment of fairness by pardoning 200 prisoners, 14 of which were convicted of murder, and four were life sentence prisoners.
He said they had been rehabilitated, so he released them. That is the way the system is supposed to work. We have to demand that all of our elected officials show this kind of fairness in all of these aspects of life. The day of the fox is over.
My name is Omar Askia Ali, aka Edward Sistrunk.
(Sound of a cell door closing.) These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
