Equal Justice Matters Wall (S)
Saltzman, Lance
Speal, Steven
Stack, Kawan
Surry, Alexander
Lance Saltzman with his sister, Jessica.
LANCE SALTZMAN
Saltzman was attacked by a pit bull when he was 17 months old, which caused head trauma that left him with ongoing cognitive deficit, according to his mother. As a teenager, Saltzman had a serious drug problem, for which he says he never received treatment. He was convicted of a series of misdemeanor offenses before his eighteenth birthday, including driving with a revoked license, providing a false name, marijuana possession, petty theft, and trespass. In 2003, Saltzman was sentenced to two years in prison for burglary of his brother’s friend’s house with his brother when he was 16 years old. He dropped out of school after completing the ninth grade and worked a number of odd jobs including roofing, block work, and house construction. He lived at home with his mother, Christina Borg; stepfather, Toni Minnick; and younger brother.
One afternoon in March 2006, Saltzman told the ACLU, Minnick and his mother were in the midst of a heated argument. At one point, Minnick retrieved his gun from the bedroom, pointed it at Saltzman’s mother, and fired it near her. Borg called the Green Acres Police Department to file a report. Officers took the gun, for which Minnick had a permit, but returned it to him a few days later. No charges were filed. According to Saltzman and his mother, shortly after his weapon was returned, Minnick pulled the gun on Borg again and threatened to kill her.
Saltzman told the ACLU that he feared for his mother’s life and “decided that [Minnick] should not keep this firearm, as he already proved that he is not responsible and a danger to all of us in the house.” One day in June, when no one else was home, Saltzman removed the gun from his stepfather’s bedroom. According to evidence presented at trial, Saltzman subsequently sold the gun to a friend to feed his drug addiction. The gun was later used in the commission of a burglary. His mother told the ACLU, “As far as I’m concerned, I would be dead right now if he hadn’t taken the gun.”
When Minnick returned home from work that day, he noticed that his gun was missing and notified the police. The police later found the gun in the possession of the young man who had committed the burglary, who told the police he obtained the firearm from Saltzman. Saltzman was charged with armed burglary, grand theft of a firearm, and being a felon in possession of a firearm—all for breaking into his own home and taking his stepfather’s gun. He had taken nothing other than the gun and was charged with stealing only the gun. When police arrested Saltzman, they found cocaine in his car and charged him with possession of cocaine as well. Two months later, Saltzman was also charged with the burglary and grand theft committed by the young man with his stepfather’s gun, though Saltzman claims he was not involved in that crime.
In February 2007, when he was only 22 years old, Saltzman was sentenced to mandatory life without parole for the burglary of his own home. He was sentenced under Florida’s Prison Releasee Reoffender Law because he was found to have taken his stepfather’s gun within three years of his release from prison for the burglary he had committed when he was only 16. According to Saltzman, prior to trial he was offered a plea deal of five years; he says his attorney never explained to him that he faced a likely life sentence if he was convicted at trial.
Saltzman’s mother was shocked by her son’s sentence. “He left the house with a gun… because he feared for his and my life,” she said. “It was a home he had lived in his whole life. How do you burglarize your own home?” In an affidavit filed with the Palm Beach County Court, Minnick argued for a reduction of his stepson’s sentence:
“When Lance was suspected of stealing my firearm, I had never intended to report more than a grand theft offense. Had I known the State of Florida would prosecute this offense as one of a burglary which would expose Lance to being incarcerated for life, I never would have reported the offense to the police, as it was only a grand theft, at the most.”
“In my heart,” he told the court a few years after Saltzman was imprisoned, “Lance Saltzman should not have a life sentence…I feel Lance has done enough time in prison for the crime he committed three years ago.”
Saltzman’s incarceration has been devastating for his mother, who told the ACLU, “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I’m 91 pounds because of this, because I am sick to death over what they are doing to my son. I’m dumbfounded over the whole thing.” Compounding her mental anguish, Borg says she is broke from paying her son’s legal fees and can no longer afford an attorney to represent her son.
Saltzman told the ACLU, “I was just trying to do the right thing. I didn’t burglarize my own house; I lived there my whole life with mom and dad and brother. I shouldn’t have a life sentence for going into dad’s bedroom.” He has now been in prison for six years. In this time, he has taken a number of courses and participates in a faith-based program. “I was 21 years old at the time [of the crime],” he said. “I am now 29 years old. I will remain in prison until I die…Now I ask, has justice been served?”
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 109).
STEVEN SPEAL
After Kansas Highway Patrol officers discovered drugs and firearms in a car in which Speal was a passenger, he was convicted of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, possession of 267 grams of methamphetamine and 41 pounds of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime, and two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was sentenced to LWOP. He was 25 years old.
Raised in Oklahoma City, Speal is the sole child of parents who separated when he was an infant. His mother was a drug addict and often used drugs in front of him. Grappling with a dysfunctional family and a learning disability, Speal says he struggled in school and constantly felt like an outcast. At an early age, he began using alcohol and drugs. He says that when he had his first drink at just nine years of age, “all the pain went away.” He began experimenting with drugs at age 11, and as he got older he sometimes did drugs with his mother. “When I realized that other drugs numbed the pain also, I tried to stay high on anything that I could,” he recalls. “From 11 years old on I just wanted to feel normal, be liked, and to fit in. At 15, I found out that if I had drugs people really wanted to be around me. They accepted me and even acted like they really cared about me.”
When he was 18, Speal was convicted of possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute after police searched his car and found baggies of marijuana and 26 Xanax pills. Later that year, he pleaded guilty to separate offenses of auto burglary and unlawful use of a motor vehicle. At age 19, Speal pleaded guilty to charges of possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute upon the discovery of large baggies of marijuana and a plastic bag of pills in his vehicle. A few years later, when he was 22, Speal pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine and served four years in prison. Just over a year after he finished that sentence, he was sentenced to LWOP as a career offender on the basis of his two prior marijuana convictions.
Speal describes the punishment of life without parole as “life without hope, life without compassion, life without a chance, life without love, life without peace, life without ‘you fill in the blank.’” He fears dying in prison, he says, because “my Steven Speal with his mother, Mary McMillan, and his stepfather. “Life without hope, life without compassion, life without a chance, life without love, life without peace, life without ‘you fill in the blank.’” A bloodline dies if I die in here…They took away my whole bloodline. I know I made a mistake, but I didn’t make a mistake that’s worth the rest of my life. ”
Speal’s mother, Mary McMillan, who is clean and sober now, says her son’s imprisonment has been unbearable for her. “My God, I want my boy home. It’s been too long,” she told the ACLU. She says she feels guilty for raising her son in a house full of drug dealers. “Steven did not have a chance,” she says. “He saw from a very young age using and selling drugs… His biggest crime was that he was a junkie and he got hooked worse on stuff worse than I ever did. The only person he hurt was himself.” According to McMillan, Speal’s imprisonment pains his entire extended family. “They put us all in jail. It hurts every one of us. Your life in some areas doesn’t go on,”she told the ACLU. She says Speal’s nieces don’t even remember seeing their uncle outside of the prison gates, explaining, “They think he is the sweetest thing…they don’t understand why Uncle Steven can’t come home. It affects everyone. ”
Speal continued to struggle with drug and alcohol addiction when he began serving his life-without-parole sentence. He reports he had difficulty coping with the numerous killings he witnessed in the first years of his sentence and began taking heroin in prison. Speal says he finally turned his life around when he completed intensive drug treatment and Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous programs in prison and overcame his addictions. He is now the co-facilitator of these programs, serves as an inmate companion for prisoners on suicide watch, and provides pre-release counseling to prisoners who are about to be released. He says, “I feel I am doing just what I am supposed to at these times, helping others. Speal has become profoundly religious and preaches to other inmates. He also works in a prison sewing factory making military shirts.
After 17 years in prison, Speal says he has learned from his mistakes and taken responsibility for his actions. “I know what I did was wrong but I did not know any other way at the time, and I just wanted to be loved,” he told the ACLU. “They gave us a death sentence because we made mistakes when we were kids.”
Speal, now 42, exhausted his appeals process long ago, and his commutation petition was denied in February 2013. He prays for a chance to show society how he has changed and is eager to demonstrate how he can contribute to society, saying, “I will never give up the right to be free again when I get out. I understand life is too short. I have made choices to help as many people as I can in here or out there. Given the chance to be free, I will make the people that helped me to get my freedom proud that they took the time and effort.”
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 151).
*Steven’s sentence was ultimately commuted by President Obama after serving more than 19 years behind bars.
Steven Speal with his mother, Mary McMillan, and his stepfather.
Kawan Stack
KAWAN STACK
Stack was a small-time street hustler who bought and sold items from others who needed money to support their drug addictions. According to Stack, he did this to support his own addiction to crack cocaine, which he had been using since age 14. Stack grew up without a father and says he repeatedly witnessed his mother being beaten by boyfriends.
Following a burglary in an apartment, police found stolen property in Stack’s apartment in November 1996: rings (including a ring depicting the face of Jesus Christ), a gold chain, a men’s watch, a cordless telephone, and an amplifier. Police investigating the burglary had contacted Stack’s probation officer to inquire whether he was in possession of some of the stolen items. Stack told police that he had bought the items from a “clucker,” a term for a drug addict who will do anything to obtain drugs.
Stack’s first trial ended in a mistrial when the owner of the property perjured herself in court. According to Stack, the owner recanted and initially refused to testify against him in his retrial, but she relented after the District Attorney’s office threatened to charge her with falsifying a police report. On retrial, Stack was convicted of two counts of possession of stolen things in May 1997.
Stack was originally sentenced to seven years in prison on each of the two counts, but he was resentenced to mandatory LWOP as a third-strike offender. Stack had pleaded guilty to his two prior convictions for attempted armed robbery when he was 17 years old and for two counts of distribution of 0.15 grams of cocaine when he was 18 years old. Stack used no violence in the commission of the attempted armed robbery. Of his second conviction, Stack says that he was selling fake crack rocks to support his drug addiction and pleaded guilty to cocaine distribution even though the prosecutor never produced a videotape of him selling the counterfeit rocks to an undercover agent. According to Stack, he was never advised that his next charge could result in a life sentence on account of his prior convictions.
He says of his sentence, “It’s like saying you’ll never amount to anything, as what was told to me as a child…You have no rights, no privileges, and the government now owns you.” He adds, “A man should have a chance at being redeemed.” His fiancée, Sandra Morris, and mother, Brenda Stack, stay in regular contact with him and fervently hope for his release one day.
Stack has served 17 years of his LWOP sentence. He says that he has been reformed, is now humble and wiser, and has purpose and vision. He has completed anger management, substance abuse, and self-help programs while incarcerated. He describes prison as “pure hell” and says he has been held in solitary confinement for a combined five years for defiance, drug use, and possession of currency bills. In addition, according to Stack, Louisiana State Penitentiary prison guards sprayed him with Sabre Red, a chemical agent, leaving him with second-degree burns on his face and upper torso.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 111).
ALEXANDER SURRY
Surry married his high school sweetheart, with whom he has three children. To support his family, he consistently worked as a professional painter, roofer, and asphalt paver. Though he had never been a smoker or a drinker, Surry says he became addicted to crack and gradually progressed from using the drug to selling it in order to support his own habit, leading to two convictions for cocaine distribution. On January 9, 2001, when Surry was on parole for his second drug charge, his parole officer went to his Shreveport home and, through the window, saw him lying on a sofa. As the officer approached, Surry hid a small white bottle beneath a sweatshirt. Upon entering, the officer lifted the shirt and retrieved the bottle, which contained a small crack cocaine rock, an amount Surry characterizes as “crumbs. ”
Surry was convicted of cocaine possession. Although the offense ordinarily carries a maximum sentence of five years, he was adjudicated as a third-strike felony offender and sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without parole in April 2002 because of his prior convictions for drug distribution in 1993 and 1998. Surry appealed his sentence, arguing that he should benefit from a June 15, 2001, amendment to the habitual offender statute that limited the maximum sentence in his case to 10 years. The appeal was denied on the grounds that the amendment, enacted only six months after his offense and before his sentencing, was not retroactive. In 2009, Surry filed a federal habeas corpus petition alleging prosecutorial misconduct and a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights when he was required to give his fingerprints at the multiple offender hearing. The petition was denied.
“Everything he did was to hurt himself, not others,” his wife, Sarlower Surry, told the ACLU. “I think that the system could have did something to help [with his drug use] instead of putting him away for life. I think they should have had a program that would help rehabilitate him…A life sentence is no way to deal with a drug addiction at all.” She said it has been difficult raising their three children without their father, adding, “He always was there as a father to take care of us. He just made some mistakes. He just made some wrong turns. And the system just like throwed him away, like it doesn’t matter. ”
Now 49 years old, Surry has been imprisoned for 13 years and has five grandchildren. He talks at least twice a week with his children, who were teenagers when he was incarcerated. His daughter, Cashawna, told the ACLU that her father’s incarceration has been immensely difficult for her. “It’s like a hole is there in my heart, in my life,” she said. “I’ve cried many a nights…It was so hard not having my father around when I had relationship problems or just going through hard times in life. Just praying and talking to God and just crying, like, ‘God, I need my father.’” She says that because her father could not walk her down the aisle when she got married, she chose to be married by a justice of the peace instead of in a church.
The Louisiana pardon board unanimously approved Surry to complete only one-third, or 25 years, of his sentence, but according to Surry, the pardon request has been sitting on the Governor’s desk since 2009. His wife continues to advocate for his release.
Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 142).
Alexander Surry