Equal Justice Matters Wall (C)
Caliste, Damon
Carter, Paul
Carthan, Ricky
Castillo, Elisa
Cesal, Craig
Chester, Sherman
Clay, William
Clowers, Pinkney
Coleman, Donnel
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DAMON CALISTE
Cameras were discovered missing when a store manager found several empty camera packages in the store. Caliste and a co-defendant were arrested when they returned to the store the following day. Caliste’s fingerprints were lifted from one camera box, and surveillance footage showed Caliste and his co-defendant each stealing cameras. Following an inventory check, the store estimated that 12 to 14 cameras, each worth approximately $80 to $150, had been stolen. Caliste was convicted of theft of goods valued at over $500. Although the maximum sentence for Caliste’s offense was 10 years, he was sentenced to LWOP as a fourth-time felony habitual offender based on a 1996 conviction for possession of contraband in prison for a small amount of marijuana; a 1994 conviction for armed robbery, in which a co-defendant used a knife while robbing a business while Caliste waited outside the building; a 1993 conviction for distribution of a single rock of crack cocaine; and a 1993 conviction for forgery of two checks, each in the amount of $25.75. His co-defendant sentenced to 40 years as a habitual offender. Caliste, who is Black, is 39 years old.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 146).
PAUL CARTER
Carter grew up fatherless in what he describes as the “ghetto” of New Orleans, and he began using drugs at an early age. He struggled with heroin addiction for years but says he never received drug treatment before he was sentenced to die in prison.
In November 1997, when Carter was 29 years old, two New Orleans police officers investigating narcotics activity on a street corner near a housing project observed Carter, with a plastic bag, standing with another man. Reportedly because they believed Carter was about to make a drug sale, police searched him; they found a hypodermic needle and a bottle cap in Carter’s coat pocket. Police also found a small amount of powder inside a piece of foil on the ground, which prosecutors said Carter had thrown. The residue in the bottle cap and the small amount of powder inside the piece of foil tested positive for heroin; the syringe was clean. A New Orleans Police Department criminalist testified for the prosecution that “the amounts were too insignificant to weigh.” Police also found fake crack rocks on Carter, which he said he was selling in order to obtain heroin for his own use.
Carter was convicted of possession of heroin. He was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison as a third-strike habitual offender, but after the prosecutor won a motion to reconsider his sentence, Carter was resentenced to LWOP. Carter’s sentence was based on two prior convictions, one for simple escape in 1987 at age 18, and the other for possession of stolen property in 1990 at age 21. Of his sentencing, Carter says it felt “like the life within you is taken away.” Now 45 years old, Carter has served 16 years in prison. While imprisoned, he has earned his GED, completed courses in anger management and culinary arts, and is receiving substance abuse treatment. He says that he wishes he could be given one more chance to become a productive citizen, and he wishes to help prevent others from following the same path.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 113).
Paul Carter
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RICKY CARTHAN
In August 1998, a jury convicted Carthan of felony possession of 10 stolen stainless steel railroad tank car valves and a steel elbow pipe. The metal parts had been stolen from a valve company and were found in the possession of a junk aluminum recycling center. The junk dealer said he had purchased the metal parts as scrap metal from Carthan for $65. Carthan, who had a junk business of his own, says he had bought the items for $10 or $15 from another man known as Scarface. Though the $65 value of the metal parts was based on the set market rate per pound of stainless steel, and the owner of the parts had not paid money for them but received them in a swap from the owner of a recycling center, the jury found the parts had a value greater than $100, the threshold for the offense to qualify as a felony. The jury also convicted Carthan of misdemeanor possession of a stolen cellular phone.
Carthan, who also worked as an offshore rigger prior to his incarceration and served in the U.S. Army until he was honorably discharged in 1977, was sentenced to mandatory LWOP in December 1998 as a fourth felony offender under Louisiana’s habitual offender law. He had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of issuing worthless checks in 1997 and to theft of items valued between $100 and $500 in 1995, when he was 36 years old. He had also been convicted of attempted aggravated rape in 1979, at age 20, for which he served eight years in prison.
Now 54 years old, Carthan has been in prison for 16 years. He is married with three children and talks with his mother once a week. The state of Louisiana terminated his parental rights on account of his life sentence and also sought to terminate his wife’s parental rights following her incarceration for issuing worthless checks. Carthan says his sentence is “like knowing you are alive, but not living.” He unsuccessfully sought post-conviction relief, his habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction and sentence was rejected as time-barred under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, and several subsequent habeas petitions were similarly dismissed. Carthan, who is Black, works as an inmate-counsel substitute assisting other inmates with legal matters.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 112).
ELISA CASTILLO
Convicted of participating in a drug-smuggling conspiracy for her role in a Houston-based bus company, Castillo was sentenced in May 2009 to LWOP for the nonviolent crime.
An immigrant from Mexico, Castillo dropped out of school when she was 14. She says she was struggling to make ends meet; she had to pawn her jewelry in order to pay the rent on her southwest Houston home, and she relied on her son to pay her electric bill with his credit card. She worked as a bus station ticket-taker and recalls she dreamed of owning her own bus. According to Castillo, she acted on the advice of her boyfriend, a bus driver, and became partners with a resident of Mexico who wanted to set up a Houston-based bus company. The Mexican businessman sent her money to purchase three tour buses that would travel between Mexico and Houston; they were kept in her name. She says her Mexican contact sent her money to cover bus company expenses but never paid her the monthly salary she was promised. She maintains that she did not know she was being used as a pawn in a cocaine trafficking operation between Mexico and Houston and that she was unaware that the buses were outfitted with secret compartments in which cocaine was stashed.
In part because she was unable to provide any valuable information to federal agents that could lead to the arrest and prosecution of the leaders or other high level members of the drug conspiracy, Castillo received the harshest sentence of the approximately 68 people convicted for their involvement in the scheme. Her boyfriend, who had involved her in the conspiracy, was sentenced to only 25 years. She was sentenced to LWOP under federal sentencing guidelines as a manager of the conspiracy. Now 57, Castillo is known as “Grandma” at the federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is incarcerated. When her toddler grandson visits her in prison, he believes he is visiting her in the hospital.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 65).
*Elisa’s was ultimately granted compassionate release by President Obama after serving 11 years behind bars.
Elisa Castillo, a grandmother, is currently incarcerated at a Fort Worth, Texas, federal prison.
Photo credit: Cody Duty / Houston Chronicle (2011)
Craig Cesal with his daughter, Lauren, who was 14 years old when her father was incarcerated 11 years ago.
CRAIG CESAL
His only prior conviction was a misdemeanor for carrying a bottle of beer into a Bennigan’s bar when he was a college student in 1981, for which he paid a $150 fine.
For more than 23 years, Cesal owned and operated a towing and truck repair business that provided services to police departments and sheriffs, car and truck rental companies, and trucking companies. His company retrieved trucks throughout the Midwest. Cesal’s clients also included a trucking company whose drivers trafficked marijuana.
According to Cesal, his Chicagoland, Illinois, company retrieved and repaired trucks operated by the Florida-based Sun Hill Trucking Company, whose drivers transported and distributed marijuana in addition to carrying the usual freight. Cesal explains that over the span of many years, drivers employed by Sun Hill would drop off semi-trailers at his shop for needed repairs after they were torn apart from smuggling contraband. Then, his company would return the truck to the rental company; sometimes the drivers would pay his company to retrieve the truck or trailer before repairing and returning it. For instance, on one occasion, his company retrieved a semi leased by Sun Hill that had been impounded at the United States/Mexico border, secured the truck’s release from DEA custody, made repairs to panels DEA agents ripped from the trailer in order to extract marijuana encased in its roof and walls, and returned the trailer to the leasing company. Cesal says that at no time did he think he was breaking the law.
Cesal was arrested in 2002 when he traveled to Georgia to retrieve a rented semi discarded at a recycling center by Sun Hill workers who had transported, offloaded, and departed with 2,667 pounds of marijuana from Mexico. Cesal was accused of conspiring with more than 20 co-conspirators, including the Sun Hill employees. Those who provided, received, bought, and sold the marijuana were arrested and prosecuted in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and elsewhere. “I was never accused of buying, selling, possessing, or using marijuana—and I didn’t,” Cesal says. “I never had a stake in the success of any marijuana venture—my repairs were required whether or not the driver was busted.”
On the advice of his attorney, whom he says advised him he would get a sentence of seven years, Cesal pleaded guilty. He says he subsequently learned that under the terms of the plea agreement, he would have to testify in any grand jury, deposition, or trial requested by prosecutors. Cesal recalls prosecutors wanted him to testify against a number of people he did not know and two people he believed were innocent of the charges against them. According to Cesal, he was told that he would receive a life sentence if he refused to provide the expected testimony and that he could reduce the life sentence only through a series of incremental reductions by providing substantial assistance in the prosecution of others.
When he discovered the terms were not what he expected, Cesal recalls he announced he wanted to withdraw the plea agreement. The judge denied withdrawal. Because Cesal breached the plea agreement by refusing to testify falsely against others, he was sentenced to a mandatory LWOP sentence under the federal sentencing guidelines for his first felony conviction. He says, “I voted my conscience and breached the plea agreement. I do not believe my sentence should have been inextricably intertwined with my ability or inability to provide substantial assistance in the prosecution of others.” Because Cesal’s plea agreement included a waiver of any appeal of his sentence, Cesal has been unable to challenge his sentence. All of Cesal’s eight co-defendants pleaded guilty in exchange for sentences ranging from 50 to 130 months. He says, “In my case, those who did traffic marijuana received little or no prison sentences and resumed their activities. They patronize a different repair station now.”
Cesal was 42 years old when he was arrested. He was married with two children, had held the same job for over 20 years, and had owned his home since 1983. Now 54, he has been incarcerated for 11 years. While in prison, he has earned his paralegal certificate through a correspondence course and works tirelessly as a jailhouse lawyer assisting other prisoners with their cases. He speaks weekly with his children, Lauren and Curtis, who were 14 and 10 years old, respectively, when he was incarcerated. Cesal is devastated that he has to “forever endure [his] life in prison,” and says, “I hope to die, sooner rather than later.”
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 166).
*Craig’s sentence was ultimately commuted by President Trump after serving more than 18 years behind bars.
RONNIE CHESTER
In February 1994, a truck containing tools used in the owner’s construction business disappeared from his carport in Hammond, Louisiana. The next day, Chester and another man sold a toolbox containing over a dozen straight wrenches and four offset wrenches to a friend for $30. The purchaser, who worked clearing land at construction sites, subsequently discovered that the tools had been stolen from his former employer and returned the tools to him. At Chester’s trial, the prosecutor presented no direct or circumstantial evidence of how Chester came into possession of the stolen tools. Nonetheless, Chester was convicted of possession of stolen property and was sentenced to life without parole under Louisiana’s habitual offender law. The court of appeal reversed his conviction and sentence on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to show that Chester was aware that the tools had been the subject of a theft, and additional circumstantial evidence concerning his acquisition of the tools would be required to sustain a conviction. On appeal, the conviction and sentence were reinstated. Chester, who is Black, is 59 years old.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 121).
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Sherman Chester with his nephew.
SHERMAN CHESTER
Growing up, Chester was a star of his high school football team in St. Petersburg, Florida. He pursued a college degree at his local community college, but his grades suffered. He says he transferred to a community college in Minnesota in 1987, where, with the help of an encouraging football coach, he became involved in the sport again. However, back in Florida, Chester’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. According to Chester, the burden of the disease was compounded by financial difficulties that threatened to force his mother, who worked two jobs, into foreclosure. Less than a year after moving to Minnesota, Chester returned to Florida to care for his mother.
Chester told the ACLU, “My family needed financial support…and like yesterday!” He says that he began selling cocaine because he was unsure of how to provide for his mother and in desperate need of money. In 1989, when he was 23, he was convicted under Florida law of possession of cocaine after police officers found a baggie with cocaine residue in it when he was pulled over for a traffic violation. In 1991, while on probation for the possession charge, he was caught with a quarter-gram of cocaine, a user quantity of marijuana, and drug paraphernalia; he was convicted under Florida law of possession of cocaine, marijuana, and paraphernalia.
Around this time, Chester says he began working as a street-level dealer in a drug conspiracy led by a family friend, whom he describes as an uncle figure. The conspiracy was under investigation by authorities, and over the course of eight months Chester sold cocaine and heroin to undercover detectives on multiple occasions, in amounts ranging from one to 40 grams of cocaine. In April 1992, when Chester was 26, he and nine co-defendants were indicted for their roles in the conspiracy. He was convicted and held accountable for almost four kilograms of heroin and 57.4 kilograms of cocaine, nearly the entire amount of drugs involved in the conspiracy
Because of Chester’s two prior convictions, an LWOP sentence was mandatory under the federal three-strikes law. If he had been sentenced under the federal sentencing guidelines instead, he would have received 235 to 293 months in prison and be home with his family now. The sentencing judge, Judge William J. Castagna, expressed frustration with the mandatory sentence, stating, “The minimum mandatories are an unfortunate development in the criminal jurisprudence and we’d be much better off without them.” He added, “This case is an illustration of the difficulties and problems that result from the application of mandatory minimum sentences. This man doesn’t deserve a life sentence, and there is no way that I can legally keep from giving it to him.” With the exception of the leader of the conspiracy, Chester’s co-defendants have all been released from prison.
Five months after Chester was sentenced to LWOP, his mother lost her battle with cancer and other illnesses. Now 47, Chester has been incarcerated for more than 20 years. He told the ACLU, “I was a very young man with no direction or respect for the law…I’m over two decades wiser now, and a second chance at freedom and life would be a very humbling and grateful opportunity.” In prison, he counsels youth, reads, and searches for legal cases that could help him reduce his sentence; he has also taken classes ranging from yoga to sewing. He says he hopes for an opportunity to show the world how much he has changed, explaining, “I have so much more in life to offer, and this is not how I want to reward my mother’s memory about her only son. She’s deceased and I have to carry this burden around for the rest of my life.”
Chester told the ACLU that his great-grandmother recently died at the age of 100. He says his first thought when he learned of her death was, “100 years. How could I deal with the concept of living that long and still be incarcerated?”
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 92).
*Sherman’s sentence was ultimately commuted by President Obama after serving more than 20 years behind bars.
WILLIAM CLAY
Clay testified that he was drunk on corn whisky at the time of the crime, which took place on New Year’s Eve 2001. Prosecutors systematically excluded four Black potential jurors from the jury, which Clay unsuccessfully tried to challenge on appeal. The jury convicted Clay of grand larceny, and although the crime carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment, he was sentenced to a mandatory LWOP sentence under Mississippi’s habitual offender law because of his prior violent felony convictions more than twenty years earlier for attempted rape in 1975 and manslaughter in 1980.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 123).
William Clay
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PINKNEY CLOWERS
His only prior run-ins with the law were minor fines for loitering and reckless driving at age 17, as well as probation for twice pleading guilty to possession of small amounts of marijuana at age 19. According to Clowers, while he was being held in county jail for one of these marijuana arrests, two federal agents asked to speak with him about drug-dealing activities about which he says he knew nothing. Clowers says the agents threatened to charge him if he did not cooperate, which he did not. Eight months later, he was arrested following a traffic stop, when a police search of his car revealed the end of a smoked marijuana cigarette, a revolver, and cash.
At the time of his arrest in November 1991 at age 20, Clowers was expecting a child. Raised in Macon, Georgia, he had just started a D.J. service and landscaping business, and he says he was trying to find ways to provide for his new family. According to the trial court, he had been a member of a drug ring in Macon as a young teenager, starting when he was 15. The court found that after the ring was broken up, Clowers and one of the former leaders went into business for themselves, selling crack cocaine. According to prosecutors, the two eventually recruited others to do the street-level dealing and commit robberies to finance their drug operations; Clowers was never charged with participating in a robbery offense. He was convicted primarily on the basis of witnesses who testified against him in exchange for reduced sentences.
Two days before his twenty-first birthday, Clowers was convicted of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, operating a continuing criminal enterprise involving 15 kilograms of crack cocaine, conspiring to interfere with commerce, and conspiring to use or carry firearms in the commission of drug trafficking crimes. The drug amounts he was held responsible for were not charged on the indictment, proven in court, or determined by a jury; they were adopted by the sentencing judge based on a determination by a federal probation officer, even though no crack or powder cocaine had been seized by the authorities. Despite his minor criminal history, Clowers was sentenced to a statutory mandatory sentence of life without parole because of the amount of drugs determined by the probation officer.
Clowers adamantly denies participating in any such drug distribution enterprise. He admits he is not an angel and says that growing up in the “hood,” he knew people involved in drug activities but was not “a street guy” himself. He says he believes he was charged because he refused to serve as an informant. He reports he is particularly baffled as to how a teenager could be found to have run a continuing criminal enterprise, a charge normally reserved for drug kingpins, remarking, “How can a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old run a continuing criminal enterprise?”
Clowers is now 41 and says he has become a different person in the more than two decades since his youthful conviction. He writes, “A person who is twenty and one who is forty are worlds apart. So the differences are great. A certain degree of understanding and patience can come with time.” He has earned his GED and has taken almost every educational class available to him; he says he views education as a “master key…to unlock [my] potential and live a prosperous and successful life.” Long interested in philosophy, while in prison he says he loves to read, meditate, “and travel with my spirit and mind.” As a follower of the Tree of Life school of thought, he says he is “fighting for my freedom and trying to align with the positive aspects of my destiny.” If he is released from prison, he says he would like to “contribute my part in making the planet just a little better” and “travel and seek ways to help others and myself.”
His son, born just a few months after Clowers began his life sentence, is now a college student. Clowers laments that they “have never spent a single day in the ‘free world’ together.” He says being in prison is painful, “especially when feeling and hearing the struggles that my loved ones may be going through. Or when thinking about the fact that I have a son whom I’ve never been able to spend time with, provide for, or watch and help grow into a young man. Just as painful as to know I have a mother who has spent many nights suffering, petitioning, and praying.” Yet, he remains positive. “On the other hand, I believe that there is good that can be taken from every experience, even adversity. And this is what I try daily to focus on,” he says.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 71).
DONNEL COLEMAN
Coleman says he tried to check into rehab for his drug addiction on the day of his arrest in 1998, but there were no beds available at the drug treatment centers. He was arrested later that day as part of an undercover “buy/walk” drug operation in New Orleans. An undercover New Orleans police officer approached Coleman and another man on a street corner and asked to purchase $10 of crack. According to the undercover officer, Coleman verbally negotiated a $20 drug sale with her, and his acquaintance sold her two small pieces of fake crack. Coleman claims he had nothing to do with the drug sale and was merely standing on the same street corner as the seller. The co-defendant who sold the drugs supported Coleman’s account and testified that he, not Coleman, sold the drugs.
Coleman was convicted of attempted distribution of a substance falsely represented to be a controlled dangerous substance. The crime usually carries a sentence of zero to two-and-a-half years, but he was sentenced to mandatory LWOP as a third-strike offender because of his prior convictions for possession of two small bags of cocaine in 1995 at age 19 and attempted armed robbery with a 2-by-4 board in 1997, an incident that he describes as a fight, not a robbery. The drug seller received probation.
At the time of his arrest, Coleman was 22 years old and had recently become a father; his daughter had been born three weeks earlier. According to Coleman, he had a serious drug problem, and “wanted desperately to get help” so that he could be a father to his newborn daughter, to whom he says he was instantly devoted.
Now 37, Coleman has been incarcerated for nearly 15 years, during which he says he has taken every course available to him. He has earned his GED and certificates in welding, graphic communications, collision repair, construction, and refrigerant repair. He has completed at least 10 substance abuse programs and several parenting courses, and he serves as a re-entry mentor for prisoners who are nearing their release dates. He reports he has an excellent disciplinary record and has achieved “trustee” status at Louisiana State Penitentiary. He says he remains extremely close with his parents and 14-year-old daughter, with whom he speaks once a week. He told the ACLU, “[I] shouldn’t have to die here…I’m mature, responsible, educated, and fully rehabilitated. I’m sorry for all the wrong I[’ve] done. If given another chance, I can be productive in society and there to help my family…so I can be the man/father that I was intended to be.”
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 137).
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Charles Cundiff
CHARLES CUNDIFF
Prior to his incarceration, Cundiff worked at a plant nursery, in construction, as a mortgage solicitor, and as a stereo store manager. He was sentenced to life without parole for conspiracy to import and distribute more than 1,000 kilos of marijuana and has been incarcerated since 1991. According to Cundiff, at sentencing, the trial judge stated that he would sentence Cundiff to 15 to 20 years, but if he did so, such a sentence would be reversed on appeal. Cundiff has served 22 years in prison and worked steadily for 12 years of his imprisonment, but he had to stop working due to his declining health. Now, he is seriously ill and requires a walker. He suffers from skin cancer, a dropped foot and shrunken leg due to severe arthritis and spinal surgery, disintegration of orbital bone due to chronic infection, and vision problems. He has three children, nine grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. He is visited regularly by two friends from his youth. Of prison, Cundiff says, “If I should die and go to hell, it could be no worse.”
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 165).
*Charles’s sentence was ultimately commuted by President Obama.
VINCENT CUSHINELLO
At trial, Cushinello was found to have slashed the tires of nine cars in the lot of a used car dealer and those of a truck near the used car lot. He was not observed slashing the tires, but two patrons of a nearby bar testified at trial that they saw Cushinello walking in an adjacent parking lot and putting something in his pocket. A pocket knife was recovered from him following his arrest. He was convicted of simple criminal damage to property and was sentenced to mandatory life without parole as a third-strike felony offender. Without the habitual offender sentencing enhancement, the maximum sentence for his offense is two years in prison. Previously, Cushinello had pleaded guilty to simple burglary in 1982, and about five years later pleaded guilty to eight counts of armed robbery and two counts of attempted murder, all of which occurred on the same day in 1986, for which he served 12 years in prison. His last felony had occurred almost 20 years earlier. Cushinello, who is white, is 56.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 148).
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