solitary confinement is not worthy of us

September 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment

This is a cross-post from Torah by T’ruah, in which rabbis (and in some cases, rabbinical students!) connect the weekly parashah to human rights issue of our day. I wrote about last week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim-Vayelech.

Parshat Nitzavim, the first of this week’s double parshah, speaks powerfully to our fundamental human need for connection to each other and to Gd —and therefore to the isolation that is an anathema to it.

The covenant of Torah that began with the distant and dramatic display of Gd’s power at Mount Sinai is sealed here as Israel stands before (nitzavim lifnei) Gd. This immediacy of acceptance of Torah is in sharp contrast with the fear and trembling of receiving of Torah.

Indeed, part of that covenant, Moses says, is the ingathering of those who are dispersed, on earth and in heaven —underscoring the importance of physical proximity for this final step. For their part, the Israelites are to love Gd b’chol l’vavecha uv’chol nafshecha, “with all your heart and with all your soul”—a spiritual proximity.

Most vividly of all, the parshah ends with a poetic description of the location of Torah: It is not in heaven, and it is not across the sea. Lo re’khokah hi . . . ki carov eilecha . . . me’od: “It is not far off . . . but very close to you.”Torah is inside us, in our mouths and in our hearts.

Significantly, the Israelites stand together “to cleave”to Gd (u’ldavka bo). A list is actually enumerated: chiefs, elders, men, women, children, strangers. The breadth is staggering, as Gd promises this covenant with those present and with those absent (v’eit asher einenu bo). This is no individual teshuva: This is a community, everyone and everywhere, reaching out and hanging on to Gd.

And this is the capstone of Gd’s relationship with Gd’s people, whom Gd has been preparing since Abraham heard the call generations earlier. Covenant means relationship, and relationship means intimacy.

At a protest in front of the Bronx DA's office, demanding accountability for the death of a man -- ruled a homicide -- held in solitary at Rikers Island.

At a protest in front of the Bronx DA’s office, demanding accountability for the death of a man — ruled a homicide — held in solitary at Rikers Island.

This summer, as part of my participation in T’ruah’s Rabbinical and Cantorial Fellowship in Human Rights, I interned at the Urban Justice Center’s Mental Health Project, working on its coalition for prison and jail reform in New York.

Currently, one of the main issues for advocates is the use of solitary confinement behind bars. The situation is bleak in New York, where isolation is regularly used as a punitive measure, and at rates above the national average —but the state is not unique in this practice.

Nationwide, there are estimated to be more than 100,000 people in segregation in prisons, jails, detention centers, juvenile facilities, and military installations. Terms can be days, weeks, months, years, or decades.

The U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Torture has decried solitary confinement in the U.S. as such, and for good reason. People in solitary confinement are usually held in cells the size of a parking space —with no windows and doors with only food slots, through which communication with guards, therapists, and doctors is conducted —for 22 to 24 hours a day. Visits are severely curtailed, and TVs, radios, and books might not be allowed. As a punishment, solitary may be meted out for the most minor of infractions, and there is little oversight or accountability in the process.

Every study of the subject tells us that solitary confinement is an affront to humanity. In isolation, human beings suffer “irreparable emotional damage and extreme mental anguish,”in the words of one expert. After 12 years in solitary, one prisoner noted: “I lost the will to live. I lost hope . . . Day after day all I saw was gray walls, and over time my world became the gray box.”

What we learn in our parshah is that intimacy is required for relationship with Gd and community. What we learn in our prison system is that intimacy with either is impossible in solitary confinement.

Isolation of human beings for extended periods of time is an abomination, with heartbreaking emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects. The Torah calls us, in its final, poignant moments, to move close to Gd and to others. As a community, we must ensure that all of us are able to do so.

Solitary confinement is not worthy of us as a people in relationship with Gd.

Access resources to become involved in the response to solitary confinement through T’ruah or the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

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of hookers and crotch shots

July 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This is the second post in this space about a current political issue in as many weeks, which is unusual for me. I was actually thinking about it last week — and then yesterday happened. And I am more pissed than ever about the attempted political comebacks of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer.

As a reminder: In 2011 Weiner resigned from his congressional seat — he represented New York’s 9th district — after disclosing that he’d exchanged sexual messages and photographs online with six different women over the past three years. In 2008, Spitzer resigned from his post as governor of New York after it was revealed that he had patronized an escort agency for the past several years.

Weiner is now running for mayor of New York City; Spitzer, city comptroller.

And yesterday Weiner held a press conference to address further leaked messages and photos from liaisons that happened AFTER he resigned.

To be honest, I am less annoyed at Spitzer. I don’t think prostitution should be illegal, so in theory, I am philosophically not troubled by Spitzer’s behavior. To the extent that he didn’t tell his wife of his extra-marital sexual relationships and therefore put her at risk — and it seems quite likely that he didn’t, given that they separated shortly after his disclosure and are reportedly still so — his behavior was thoughtless and selfish. More troubling is the fact that Spitzer served as the state’s Attorney General before he was governor, thus directing state law enforcement — an hypocritical role while breaking the law himself, especially since he prosecuted several prostitution rings during his career. Indeed, as Spitzer said when he resigned, “Over the course of my public life, I have insisted — I believe correctly — that people take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor.” But while I am fairly sure that Spitzer’s actions represented a betrayal of his marriage, I can see the argument that they did not represent a betrayal of the public trust — at least as far as I don’t agree with current laws around sex work. (Martha Nussbaum made this argument shortly after Spitzer’s resignation.) I’ll elaborate further on my issues with Spitzer below.

Similarly, I don’t think that Weiner’s actions in and of themselves proved him unfit for public office. He certainly didn’t break any laws. And I don’t necessarily think that “sexting” (or however we’re classifying his behavior) is somehow perverted or sexually deviant, as many have charged. (Amanda Hess makes the case that Weiner’s predilections are downright boring.) And even if it were, it still wouldn’t render Weiner unable to serve his constituents.

As with Spitzer, to the extent that Weiner was not forthright with his wife — and it seems quite likely that he wasn’t, as she shared in a New York Times Magazine article about his journey back to politics — his behavior was thoughtless and selfish. What angered me about Weiner’s actions was his dishonesty after a picture purportedly of his underwear-clad erection was tweeted to a female follower of his account: Weiner initially claimed that he had been hacked and because of his lie let his Democratic House colleagues — and even his friend Jon Stewart — come to his defense. To my way of thinking, lying to your constituents and your colleagues does constitute a betrayal of the public trust. And it is definitely disturbing that at least one instance of his sexting was done without the consent of the recipient.

Many have pointed out that, in the spectrum of politician’s lies, Weiner’s is a mere peccadillo. And I agree. I would rather see politicians held accountable for their votes to send troops into battle; to cut off social safety net funding; to authorize covert operations; to restrict abortion; etc. And I’d especially like to see politicians voted out of office for the lies they tell and perpetuate in service of those votes. Unfortunately, politicians almost never admit these lies, so we’re left to condemn the ones that do confess — which almost always are classified as “sex scandals” (a most unfortunate phrase that is often used inappropriately, as in the Jerry Sandusky case, and that often serves to trivialize what occurred, as in case of the epidemic of military sexual assaults). Plus, Weiner said, when he resigned, that he was doing so because of his behavior and his lie about that behavior — which we found out yesterday that he continued to do after resignation! To say that he is untrustworthy is an understatement.

Principally, my problem with Weiner’s and Spitzer’s attempts at political rehabilitation is that they represent straight white male privilege — and the arrogance that comes with that unexamined privilege. These runs for office are not about a desire to serve the public: They are all about the men themselves, and their desire for power and prestige and second (and third?) chances. I don’t think that they should be doomed to unemployment for the rest of their lives; and indeed, both have found quite lucrative post-resignation jobs. They should stay where they are.

Can you imagine that we would even consider voting again for a gay man who resigned after being found to have engaged in sexting or prostitution? Or a person of color? Or a woman? Homophobia, racism, and sexism would kick in, and their actions would be ascribed to their being gay, or black, or female (or more accurately in some cases, not meeting the puritanical standards which are demanded of these folks). Weiner and Spitzer are given passes because their behavior — even while ill-considered — is thought to be within the bounds of “normal” for straight white men. White America can countenance the sexuality of straight white men in a way that it can’t that of queer folks, people of color, and women, who are expected to be practically asexual — or only sexual within the bounds of monogamous marriage.

Moreover, who are the candidates whose chances and future careers are being jeopardized by Weiner’s and Spitzer’s entering these respective races? I cannot believe that there is such a dearth that these two clowns represent the best options for these positions. Even if there are candidates who are only just as qualified as the two of them, shouldn’t we be supporting those who haven’t already torpedoed careers?

Update: In the September 10 primary, Weiner came in fifth in a five-way race, with less than 5% of the vote. Spitzer suffered a less humiliating loss with 48% of the vote in a two-way race. Let’s hope that these two will now fade quickly away.

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anatomy of injustice

April 3, 2012 by 3 Comments

Raymond Bonner’s Anatomy of Injustice reads like a true-crime thriller, and I would say I enjoyed if I hadn’t spent the entire book alternating between anger and horror. A New York Times reporter, Bonner wrote the book from his journalism research, which started in Texas after then-Governor George Bush — who had presided over more executions than any other governor in history — stated on Meet the Press, “I’m confident that every person that has been put to death in Texas on my watch has been guilty of the crime charged and has full access to the courts. I’m confident.”

Since Governor George Ryan of Illinois had just two weeks before suspended the death penalty in his state because of eleventh-hour exonerations of several condemned prisoners, Bonner and a colleague were first sent to Texas, and then later other states, to investigate Bush’s claim and the state of the death penalty in America today. Anatomy examines just one of the many cases they looked into: that of Edward Lee Gilmore, a young black man of limited intelligence convicted of murder in South Carolina in a seven-day trial.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not impartial on this issue. I think capital punishment is just the most egregious evidence that our criminal justice system is broken (second only to the atrocities of mass incarceration, prison-industrial complex, and drug war, among others). One of my dream jobs would be to work against the death penalty as a rabbi.

So it wasn’t going to take much to convince me of the miscarriage of justice. Tragically, it took 30 years to convince those who could actually do something for Elmore. He had three trials before he was sentenced to death for the last time, and it took almost 20 years to locate a potentially exonerating piece of evidence that the state thought was lost. The book ends before Elmore’s saga does: Last month, Elmore left a courthouse in Greenwood as a free man for the first time since 1982.

Bonner chose the case as emblematic of the many death penalty cases that occur in the 36 states in our country that allow the punishment. He notes, “Elmore’s story raises nearly all of the issues that mark the debate about capital punishment: race, mental retardation, bad trial lawyers, prosecutorial misconduct, ‘snitch’ testimony, DNA testing, a claim of innocence.”

It’s because so many death penalty cases have at least one of these issues that Elmore’s story is sadly familiar, so I won’t go into the details of his story. Bonner is able to make the case for Elmore’s innocence, overwhelming in the narrative and affirmed by his later release, even more compelling by being able to pretty reliably point to the real perpetrator, a neighbor with whom the victim was suspected of having an affair and who died years before Bonner started covering the case. He “discovered” the body and pointed the original investigators to Elmore, and they never even considered the former a suspect.

edward lee elmore, a few years before his arrest for murder

Several things struck me as I read. Abysmally represented at his original trials, Elmore benefited immensely from later (competent, not to mention tenacious and passionate) counsel from the South Carolina Death Penalty Resource Center. This is typical of many of these cases: The best representation is available on appeal. A huge part of Elmore’s experience was the direct result of the complete incompetence of his original lawyers. There are many dedicated lawyers and law students today working on the cases of death row inmates, so why aren’t more of them clamoring to be the original lawyers on these cases? Indeed, the book makes clear that one of the enormous hurdles that Elmore had to overcome during all the years of appeals was that, despite massive evidence of defense ineptitude, no one wanted to imply that previous lawyers, juries, and judges had made a mistake (especially not multiple times), or perhaps more perniciously, were racist or classist (which of course they were). It seems to me that the priority of death penalty opponents should be ensuring that those accused of crimes eligible for capital punishment get the best representation at their initial trials.

Secondly, Bonner devotes a good number of pages discussing the differing roles of prosecutor and defense attorney. The book opens with two epigrams on the subject from Supreme Court cases. Justice Byron White:

Law enforcement officers have the obligation to convict the guilty and to make sure they do not convict the innocent. They must be dedicated to making the criminal trial a procedure for the ascertainment of the true facts surrounding the commission of a crime. . . . But the defense counsel has no such comparable obligation to ascertain or present the truth. Our system assigns him a different mission. He must be and is interested in preventing the conviction of the innocent, but, absent a voluntary plea of guilty, we also insist that he defend his client whether he is innocent or guilty.

In other words, defense lawyers’ primary responsibility is to their clients, guilty or not; prosecutors’ primary responsibility is to the truth. Bonner argues that this prescription for prosecutors has gotten lost — and in the vacuum has risen a culture that values winning above all. Today, prosecutors of death penalty cases are generally more interested in convictions, in assigning blame for (what are often heinous) crimes, in assuaging public outrage and fear, in securing “justice” for the families of victims. Perhaps some of these are admirable, or at least understandable. But ultimately, Bonner argues, prosecutors are derelict in their duties when they lose sight of the fact that they are instead (or at least also) supposed to strive to protect the innocent.

What I know about the practice of law could fit into a coffee cup (just as everything I know about law school I learned from Legally Blonde, as I am fond of telling my amused law student interns), so please excuse my ignorance when I say that I simply didn’t know this legal principle. In popular culture, particularly in sympathetic portrayals of wrongly convicted criminals, prosecutors are routinely portrayed as cravenly careerist and eager to convict. While that may be an at least a somewhat accurate portrayal of reality, it’s not what the law proscribes. And Bonner’s book is an object lesson of why not.

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