0:00

I try to resist the labels

0:02

only because I feel like the labels

0:05

actually hide what really

0:07

matters, which is what are the individual

0:09

stories that are at stake. I'm

0:16

Tally far Haitian Weinstein, and this

0:18

is hearing. You just heard the voice

0:20

of my friend James Foreman Junior,

0:23

who is, among other things, a Pulitzer

0:25

Prize winning writer, an expert

0:27

on incarceration reform, which

0:29

is an important part of my vision for the Manhattander's

0:32

office. James

0:34

and I were talking recently about how previous

0:36

sentencing reform efforts have focused

0:38

on people who received excessive sentences

0:40

for things like selling drugs, and

0:42

as we were discussing how to approach sentencing

0:45

for quote unquote violent offenders

0:47

versus quote unquote nonviolent

0:49

ones, James said something that's

0:52

been stuck in my head ever since. A

0:54

label I feel keeps

0:57

us even from looking at the individual

0:59

story that is actually what

1:02

the criminal process has to be

1:04

about and deserves to be about. In

1:09

the spirit of that conversation, today,

1:11

I wanted to share a story about a man

1:13

whose case has haunted me ever

1:15

since his file came across my desk

1:18

back when I was General Counsel to the Brooklyn

1:20

District Attorney. It's a story

1:22

about a young man named Derek who in the early

1:25

nineties was homeless and struggling

1:28

with an addiction to crack cocaine, and

1:30

over the course of one week in

1:32

nineteen ninety four, Derek committed

1:35

three robberies. Altogether, he

1:37

stole about one hundred dollars worth of stuff,

1:39

including a winter coat. Derek

1:42

was arrested following the third robbery

1:44

and convicted of these crimes. And

1:46

before I continue, I want to

1:48

ask you right now to

1:51

take a moment and imagine what you think

1:53

a fair sentence for these crimes should

1:55

be. And

1:58

now I'm going to tell you the center and Derrick received

2:01

thirty two and a half to sixty

2:03

five years in prison for

2:06

stealing one hundred dollars to buy himself

2:08

food, take shelter from the cold, and

2:10

feed an addiction he couldn't control.

2:16

By the time Derek's case came to me, he'd

2:19

served twenty five years of that sentence, and

2:21

I felt strongly that he was an ideal

2:23

candidate for a program I'm proud to have

2:25

designed and implemented in the Brooklyn

2:27

DA's office. Through a new

2:29

Postconviction Justice Bureau. We reached

2:32

out to incarcerated people whose release

2:34

we might support, and Derek,

2:36

along with his lawyer, release and her team,

2:38

asked our office to support first Derrek's

2:40

request for clemency and then parole,

2:43

and late last year, the parole request

2:46

was granted. Derek was finally

2:48

released from prison this past January, just

2:50

before the pandemic, and reunited

2:52

with his daughter to Kia Mosley, who

2:55

works as a concierge right here

2:57

in Manhattan. You know, to be crowned.

3:00

I'm learning so much more about my

3:02

dad now than I

3:04

ever knew about him, you

3:07

know, just growing up. I

3:09

was very grateful to connect with Takia so

3:11

that I could learn more about the man whose case

3:14

has been such a forceful call to action.

3:26

So you're about seven yeight years old when he was

3:28

incarcerated. I was about seven to

3:30

eight years old, and

3:33

to be honest with you, I thought my dad like murdered

3:36

someone. I thought that that was

3:38

the case, and that's why he just wasn't here or

3:40

he wasn't he was gone. What made you think

3:42

that? It was so much time?

3:45

I'm he've never I'm never going to see

3:47

him again. He's never going to be home. Did you

3:49

know how long his sentence was when

3:51

I was young, I didn't know. I found

3:53

out from those in research on my own. When I

3:55

was in I want to say, ninth grade

3:58

of high school. I got really curious,

4:00

really trying to dig a little deep

4:02

for myself to be like, what is

4:04

the real reason why is he not here? And

4:08

and I knew that acts and my mother or

4:11

you know, my grandmother which is my dad, my dad's

4:13

mother, I probably wouldn't get the answers that I

4:15

was really seeking as a kid. There's things

4:17

that their family doesn't talk about, you know, like you're a kid,

4:19

you don't need to know certain dangers to all the details.

4:22

That's how my family pretty much kept

4:24

it. So, like I said, I did some research

4:27

and then I looked up his like his DOC

4:29

number or whatever, and found

4:31

out that it wasn't you know, the

4:33

crime that I thought it was. And

4:36

the time, the actual time

4:38

that I saw I remember it was

4:41

it said twenty twenty for a possible parole,

4:44

and at that time, which was years

4:46

ago, I was like, this is that were happening.

4:49

As a teenager, that must have felt like

4:51

it's just an impossible It was heartbreaking.

4:54

Yeah, it was heartbreaking, and it was something

4:56

I was just like, this is

4:58

it? Like that felt

5:00

like just seeing at a rent on the computer.

5:02

It was basically a confirmation to me to kind

5:04

of be like, this is your

5:07

life, that's your dad's life,

5:09

and that's just how it will be. I

5:12

never built the day like to think

5:14

of the day as she would actually come home, when I would

5:16

see him and you would have a conversation face

5:18

to face. I never I put it out my head

5:20

that at that moment, did you see him

5:22

in the years that he was in prison? I

5:25

did because I had my mom and my

5:27

grandmother to take me. It was kind

5:29

of like it became a I

5:33

want to say, at least once a month kind

5:35

of weekend ritual. And what were

5:37

those visits? Like? How did you see him? How much

5:39

time were you able to spend with him? So

5:43

first of all, you wake up super early because

5:46

you have to go. You know, I'm coming

5:48

from Brooklyn, so we're traveling upstate, so

5:50

we're waking up. Imagine a ten

5:52

year old having to wake up around like five o'clock

5:55

in the morning on a Saturday. Not

5:57

the best, you know, the

5:59

best thing to do. But yeah,

6:01

it would start around five o'clock. We

6:04

would wait for like some type of like van

6:06

to come pick us up around maybe six, and

6:09

I felt like we went to like maybe two or three

6:11

different boroughs gather other families,

6:14

and we would be at the prison

6:16

by like probably maybe eight.

6:19

And I felt like the ride

6:21

there was longer than the actually visit. The

6:24

visit was short. It was it was going through

6:26

a stream was of checking with

6:28

the you know, with the CEOs and the

6:31

searching and the pattering down and the

6:33

waiting and the signing the papers. And it

6:36

actually made me feel like a prisoner myself

6:38

because you're going through like a cell

6:41

to get in to visit. The gate stands

6:43

behind you. You know, you're access

6:46

step forward one by one. And it

6:49

was kind of brutal now that I think about it as

6:51

a kid, I mean I didn't

6:53

look at it in its old entirety, but like

6:56

it was pretty brutal and literally

6:58

we had to wait a little

7:01

while before my dad actually came

7:03

downstairs or came to the gate. However, the inmates

7:06

entered the visiting area, we had

7:08

to wait, so that was part of

7:10

the time I cut into the actual visit. So

7:13

it was it was those things where you're like you want to just

7:15

say everything really fast, so you don't forget

7:17

anything, and you want to like try to recap

7:19

on things that you know, you've that

7:23

happened since the last visit.

7:25

But and my dad

7:27

would just he would just be so happy. He would be so excited,

7:30

you know. He wanted to like if it was like me my

7:32

mom or just me my mom, me my grandmother

7:35

and my sister. He wanted to like have a conversation

7:37

with each of us, but then like together have a

7:39

conversation. It

7:42

was a lot. They felt

7:44

like a long time in the sense of the whole

7:47

day. The whole day started at five and maybe

7:49

get back home around maybe five or six in

7:51

the evening. But the visits wasn't wasn't long

7:53

at all. They were like maybe maybe

7:57

two hours. As a kid kind

7:59

of wore you, you know, Takia, as

8:01

I listened to you, I'm so struck by

8:03

how you remember these

8:06

visits in such granular detail, and

8:08

the choreography of them, and the steps

8:10

it took to get inside, and

8:12

the stress you felt in And it

8:15

sounds like he felt in trying to squeeze everything

8:17

into these visits, and yet

8:19

so much about it was incomprehensible. You

8:21

didn't really know why he was there in

8:25

all those years of your childhood, or

8:27

how long he was going to be there. I mean, did you

8:29

do you think as a kid, you just sort of assumed that your

8:32

dad was going to be in prison forever. Yeah.

8:35

I just thought that that's what that's how it was, and

8:38

I kind of put it in my head to accept

8:40

that. Yeah. And so

8:43

when you were in ninth grade or

8:45

so and you found out how long his sentence

8:47

was, was that also when you found out what

8:50

he was doing time for. I

8:53

did so I was able to see

8:56

all the charges. I was able to see

8:59

each date that he actually

9:02

committed the crime, um see

9:04

the sentencing. And my

9:07

dad had unfortunately had an addiction to

9:09

drugs back in his back in that time,

9:12

and he did these crimes

9:14

to feel that addiction

9:17

and not to make as as

9:20

an excuse, but that was the reason why he committed

9:22

the crimes, and that pretty much

9:24

took over his actions. So he

9:26

committed these robberies, I

9:29

guess in his neighborhood. And

9:32

reading the case files, I found

9:35

out that my dad only literally

9:37

walked away and in those three

9:39

days that time frame, less than a hundred

9:41

dollars. No one was hurt. None

9:44

of the victims were hurt or were like, uh

9:47

injured. He didn't, you know, physically

9:49

hurt them. He did vanish

9:51

in knife to one of them to like, I guess, scare

9:53

them and you know, ask for their wallet, but

9:56

he didn't physically assault them. And

9:59

it brought up with him, and I guess

10:02

the judge felt like, you need

10:04

to be away for a very long time. What

10:07

do you think about the judge's decision. It

10:12

was pretty brutal. It

10:14

was pretty brutal because you

10:17

know, it didn't just destroy my dad's life,

10:20

it destroyed everybody behind them,

10:22

like in the sense of his family. It

10:25

really took away a

10:27

lot of my child It took away my whole childhood. But

10:30

I found out what it was. The sensence to me was like just

10:35

it seemed insane. To me, it seemed insane.

10:37

It seemed unfair.

10:40

If I can use them, it seemed unfair. It just

10:42

seemed really harsh for the

10:44

crime that was committed. Because in

10:47

my eyes, I'm sitting here

10:49

being eight years old, ten years old, thinking my dad,

10:52

you know, took someone's life away. I

10:54

don't want to diminish the crime, but

10:56

I want to say it was just a robbery

10:59

that he walked away less than a hundred dollars,

11:02

And I

11:04

just think that it was just really really harsh,

11:06

a really hard sentence. And so,

11:10

Takia, your father eventually applied

11:12

for clemency and ultimately

11:15

parole. Were

11:17

you in touch with his lawyers while

11:19

that was happening. So,

11:21

yes, the young lady, at least

11:23

she reached out. My dad never gave the

11:26

fight for his time or

11:28

for his parole or for earlier

11:31

release. So when she reached out,

11:33

I was like, Okay, this is a good thing because

11:35

I've never heard from his legal team and that

11:37

I didn't know who was backing him.

11:39

I never heard from anyone throughout the year. So

11:41

for her to reach out and say, hey, your

11:44

dad might have a shot at this, you know,

11:46

we just need, you know, family members

11:48

to be on board some support. And she told

11:51

me where they stood with things. That

11:53

was like a breath of fast ship. It was actually like

11:56

really shocking. It was just out of nowhere.

11:58

Somebody called you and said I'm working on your

12:00

dad's case. Pretty

12:03

much pretty much,

12:05

that's what it was. And I said,

12:08

prior to that, nothing, nothing,

12:10

It was just my dad communicating with me. But you

12:12

know, the things that he had hoped for and things

12:14

that he was we was working on. But once

12:17

she reached out, I kind of

12:19

seen, you know, a little bit of light at the end of the

12:21

tunnel that I always had

12:23

the date in my head, like the year

12:26

twenty twenty, but I never pictured

12:28

it actually coming into fruition and actually

12:30

happening until she reached out. And

12:34

what ultimately happened. She

12:36

told me that my dad was applying for cremancy that

12:38

you know, the governor you

12:40

know, would decide if

12:43

that was able to happen for him, and

12:46

she want to let us of support and things

12:48

like that to kind of push

12:50

or you know, provide more proof

12:53

that this would be something I would be good for my dad

12:55

and my family. We guided

12:57

together, we all sent letters of port

13:00

and you know, acting for the governor.

13:03

Ha, just please grant my dad this

13:05

time to be home with his family, like he spent

13:07

all this time away, you

13:09

know, learning his lesson or what you

13:11

know, the lessons that I

13:15

guess I guess

13:17

that judge at the time or whatever wanted him to learn.

13:19

He pretty much learned that. What do you

13:21

think, what do you think he learned? Honestly,

13:25

I think the biggest thing I swear I feel

13:27

like the biggest thing my dad could have learned

13:30

was patience and just to have

13:32

faith, because if my dad would have really lost

13:34

his faith, he could have give him a long time

13:36

ago. He could have succumbed to a

13:39

lot of things that happened in these

13:41

facilities that

13:44

that people just people

13:47

just let it just take over them. I would say,

13:49

swallow them whole. And he never did

13:51

that. He always every time I spoke

13:53

with him on the phone or be a letter, it

13:55

was always a positive attitude. My dad

13:57

never let his environ him

14:00

in his situation overtake

14:02

him one day coming home to his family,

14:04

he just didn't. He devoted

14:07

something a lot of his time to the Islamic faith,

14:09

so he learned their studies and

14:12

their teachings and that helped

14:14

him. That helped him a lot because

14:17

it became something to not

14:20

only devote time

14:22

to about to have purpose.

14:24

You know, you find purpose and

14:27

when you when you belong to something or

14:29

you you feel like you're a part of something. So

14:32

it didn't just make it something. He was just there, just

14:34

another human being. You know. He had

14:36

a brotherhood that was there to

14:39

help him move along. And to Kia,

14:41

he was not granted clemency,

14:43

but he was granted parole

14:45

parole and he

14:48

got out earlier this year,

14:50

right in January. Yeah,

14:52

so my dad came home. Everything

14:57

happened really really fast over

15:00

the course of over months when it just kind of like

15:02

sped up really quickly. Um,

15:05

when he came home, he actually he texts

15:07

me from his lawyer's phone, and

15:10

I want to say, it was January nine. I

15:13

was at work and he's like, Hey,

15:15

this is your dad. I didn't know the number,

15:18

but he's like, hey, this is your dad. Just want you to know that

15:20

I'm here and um in New York

15:23

getting processing into like um

15:26

some type of facility.

15:28

But I'm in the city and I'm just like like,

15:30

what's going on? What do you what do you mean? He's

15:32

like calling the number back and you know,

15:35

his lawyer answer the phone and she gave me the details

15:37

of everything, and I was just like, I was like, I have to

15:39

see him because I couldn't believe it. He wasn't

15:41

too far from my job, thank thank god. So I

15:43

literally took a cab over there and I'm waiting

15:46

outside of this Um. I

15:48

guess it was like a man's to low or like a man's

15:51

um show to home and

15:53

I'm waiting, waiting, waiting, and I'm texting

15:56

like I'm outside and you know, he can come outside.

15:59

And it was like a feeling

16:01

of just like you really just want

16:03

to just see something for yourself, you want to

16:06

just see your eyes wants to see it to believe

16:08

it, and my dad stepped

16:10

out. It was I

16:14

can't even still explain. It was just like, I

16:17

don't know, I just found a little kid. I felt like a

16:20

little kid, like filled with glee,

16:22

just like super excited, super

16:24

ecstatic because I've never been

16:26

out. I don't remember like really being

16:28

outside with my dad, like in the public, just

16:31

us. We

16:33

never had that, so this is like unreal.

16:36

But IM just like this is my dad. He's he he's sitting in front

16:38

of me, like he's giving me a hug, he's happy to

16:40

see me. It

16:43

was a it was a really good feeling. It was a

16:45

really good feeling. And what was life

16:48

like with him after that reunion

16:51

to kia um so

16:57

beyond? You know, aside from the emotions

16:59

of excitement, there

17:02

was a process that my dad to go through. You

17:05

know, you come home, I guess from prisoning, you

17:07

did a long moment. By the time, you have to

17:10

readdress yourself, you know, get

17:12

familiar with things that you wasn't familiar

17:14

with, and try to

17:16

prioritize things. So there are steps that you

17:18

need to take to get acclimated

17:21

with the new world. So we

17:23

went out a few times. I took him shop because he had to get

17:25

some clothes he had to get, you know, you know, some new

17:27

thing, and we

17:29

had some conversations just about how

17:32

you know, he said, he was like, I'm not going back to that place.

17:34

He was adamant about that. You

17:36

know, he was happy to be home,

17:38

and he wanted to see everyone and you

17:41

know, me, his grandkids and things like that.

17:44

I just excribed to explain to him, like, you

17:47

know, you left so many years ago, Dad, things are

17:49

not the same. Family is

17:51

not Some family members have passed,

17:53

you know, some family members have moved,

17:56

so it's not that tight knit situation

17:58

that it was back then. You

18:01

know, and both of your dolers we're both

18:03

grown. So he tried to be proactive

18:05

in our lives but also

18:07

trying to find his own way. And

18:11

I feel like to

18:13

him, it was a lot. It really

18:15

was a lot. Because you do you think

18:17

about it, you have a routine that

18:19

you do for close

18:22

to thirty years of your life. Every single day,

18:25

your routine has been taken, not taken away

18:27

from you, but now another door has

18:29

opened for you to walk out that door and start

18:32

a whole different routine, a whole different

18:34

life. It just took a toll on him physically

18:36

and mentally. It was fast paced.

18:38

It was the world he

18:40

was in was fast paced, I want to say, but my

18:43

dad felt like he was still

18:45

stuck. It was kind of like, Okay,

18:48

I know I'm home, but it's kind of like,

18:50

how do I get my feet on the ground and

18:53

Takia, you lost your father not

18:55

long after that? Is that right?

18:59

Yeah? That I passed away, Um

19:03

August eight, so exactly

19:06

eight months or the day he came home.

19:10

Um. It's

19:12

so hard to deal with because it's just like,

19:15

once again, it's something that I just I

19:18

didn't see that happened. I didn't see it come in. I didn't

19:20

see it

19:23

wasn't whether the pair for that, But

19:27

in my eyes, I felt like my dad

19:30

might have struggle with some some demons

19:33

that he had to suppress

19:35

when he was locked up. That's

19:38

from his childhood,

19:41

that's from you know, different

19:44

relationships he had in the past. That's

19:47

from his addiction, that's from

19:50

just his sentence and in general, and him dealing

19:52

with what the the crimes that

19:54

he committed that ended him up where he

19:57

eventually spent most of his life dealing

20:01

with all those things and being

20:03

home in this busy place,

20:06

you know it. It

20:08

was a lot. Takeia.

20:11

Can I ask you, how do you think the system failed

20:13

your father? One?

20:20

I feel like by not treating like an like a human

20:22

being, excuse me, um, I

20:25

feel like he was just a number

20:27

in the books. It pretty much

20:29

was like, hey, this is what you need to be away from

20:31

society. We deem you,

20:34

you know, a very harmful person, so

20:36

we're just going to put you away when they could

20:39

have been intervention, like you know that. I'm

20:41

pretty sure in my dad's neighborhood growing

20:43

up, there was no There

20:45

was no real place if you had an addiction,

20:48

you know, to just be able to find

20:51

that help and for it to be readily

20:53

in available. All three victims

20:56

wrote a letter

20:59

and good faith for my dad, And

21:02

that says a lot because even

21:05

one of them, they were like they didn't even know

21:07

he did that amount of time. They were like they

21:09

were actually shocked, and

21:11

it was like, Wow, that's that's a

21:13

lot, you know, you know this, let

21:16

the man, Let him go home. Derek's

21:27

story forces us to ask, how

21:29

did our justice system produce a sentence

21:31

that is so plainly unjust? Who

21:34

else like Derek is in prison and should not be

21:37

there. How can we make sure prison

21:39

sentences are only as long as necessary

21:41

to achieve public safety? How

21:44

can people in positions of authority like the one

21:46

I'm seeking do better? But

21:50

beyond the questions of law and policy I

21:52

just laid out, talking with Derek's

21:55

daughter also helped me understand the long

21:57

term impact of a sentence on a

21:59

much deeper level. This isn't

22:01

simply a policy question. It's a moral

22:03

issue. And when we have these theoretical

22:06

debates about what kind of punishment is appropriate

22:08

for what kind of crime, it's imperative

22:10

that we remember that the people impacted

22:12

by our decisions are not theoretical

22:16

they're real people with real families

22:18

like Derek and Takia.

22:21

I want to thank you so much for talking

22:24

to us about him and just telling us

22:26

about your life and what effects us that

22:28

on you. I'm glad my dad's story

22:31

it's heard. I'm glad You know someone's

22:34

hearing it from someone he loved, if

22:36

not from himself. You know. For me, it's

22:39

an honor to speak on him, to speak

22:41

on his life, you know, because it didn't matter.

22:43

His life didn't matter. His life was important.

22:46

And you don't just want to

22:48

give up on people. You don't want

22:50

to give up on them because they have a family.

22:53

They come from somewhere, you know, and

22:56

it affects the family, It leaves the family

22:58

broken for years. It

23:02

feels good if it was good to talk about him.

23:13

Hearing is produced in partnership with Pushkin

23:15

Industries. Our producers are Sam Dingman

23:17

and Camille Baptista. Our engineer

23:20

is Evan Viola. Special thanks

23:22

to Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg. This

23:24

podcast is paid for by New Yorkers for Tally

23:27

and to Kia Mosley and James Foreman. Junior's

23:29

appearances on the show do not constitute

23:32

political endorsements. I'm running

23:34

to be District Attorney of Manhattan and

23:36

to set a national example in delivering

23:39

safety, fairness and justice for

23:41

all, especially are most vulnerable.

23:44

If you like what you've heard, go to Tally

23:47

FDA dot com to learn more about my campaign.

23:49

I'm tally Farhidian Weinstein. Thank

23:52

you for listening. I'll see you next time.

23:54

On Hearing two,