To Those Who Have Shown Notice to Cruel and Unconstitutional Laws in Washington State
Posted by Noemie Maxwell on Washblog on 12/30/07

From: Joseph Scott Wharton, doing a 3rd strike sentence of 145 years, Life Without Parole. This will make me 190 years old when I’ll leave such a Domain as this & Countless tax dollars that could turn to millions, depending on my aging health status, and it's just a matter of the state warehousing bodys for the kick backs of the correctional industry’s long awaited goal of a Correctional Empire built off of the pitfalls of addicts, alcoholics, gamblers, etc. And yet nobody’s taking notice unless its affecting your own personal life or someone close to you or a friend.

Robbery 2s have been characterized by Washington's Sentencing Guidelines Commission as posing "little risk of physical injury" and the commission recommended in its 2001 annual Sentencing Reform Act Review that Robbery 2 and some forms of Assault 2 be removed from the list of 3-Strikes offenses. Year after year, bills to bring our state into compliance with this matter of simple justice fail. Public outcry is needed to repair this extreme injustice. Please write to Justice Works! if you are interested in helping to raise this outcry. Also see Guest post from WA State Reformatory: These crimes do not merit life imprisonment, by Stevan Dozier and Life in Prison without Parole for Low-Violence Crimes: Can Washington Find Redemption?, previous stories in this series.

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Tragic events take place in all our lives but imagine realizing you may die in prison for a Crime in which I never murdered, raped, molested or any deviant behavior, never shot stabbed, or even touched my victim in my 2nd degree robbery convictions, yet I’m guilty as hell and more than sorry for those lives I may have caused to be rudely interrupted by my idiotic behavior that was contributed to by lack of life and survivor skills, this combined with $300 - $400 per day on the maniac side of crack cocaine addiction = lawlessness. The evil Clutches of this can destroy the strongest human being, and in very little time you find a view from the bottom of the well looking up…. My story is not of Robin Hood.

I knew that in 1994 when this 3 strikes law was passed and enacted, citizens were promised the Worst of the Worst would be removed from society, promising better public safety…. Now they have gotten a lot of creeps, freaks, scumbags, rapists, murders, and by a miracle some nasty pedophiles in the last 13 years of this law. But it has captured a small handful of small-time streetwise drug addicts that never intended to hurt anyone. These were suffering addicts, but still salvageable human beings that had good intentions of bucking the pattern of chronic recidivism. But when the bottom fell out of what we started to build off of, people just as myself returned to the people, places and things of yesteryear and it all began to envelop our lives… and how does a lost soul find shelter but to numb they’re senses so not to have to feel the pain of loss.Family dies off slowly. Most jump ship as they’ve lost hope of ever seeing their brother free again. Friends are vanished and onward in their lives, buying homes, having kids, living at a poverty level or just above income. Everyone knows how politically motivated laws are. Politicians and lawmakers have their own set of rules and nobody’s willing to come together and speak up as they’re afraid of losing their elected seat at the mere price of righting a wrong. How many of you agree that revisiting this 3-strikes law and fixing it so that the crime fits the time, some of us are not just throw-aways.

I messed up big time. So far I’ve paid 11 years of my life for crimes in which I never hurt anyone, never thought of hurting anyone. It may have been an undesireable experience without question, but life without parole is a Hell of an Experience….

Especially when my unarmed Robbery in the 2nd degrees are equal to the same punishment as Gary Ridgeway. He took 48 lives. He got Life Without Parole.

This law was intended for the Monsters who continue to murder, rape, molest, shoot, and stab people in the commission of their crimes. Sick people who cannot be fixed. This is where they need to be, I agree totally.

But then there’s the people that really don’t deserve a slow long death in a prison environment, surrounded by some pretty cold people that have no conscience or soul, empty eyes, emotionally bankrupt. Life for them has lost its meaning or purpose. They are file numbers and the human warehouse is full, running on your tax dollars. And some of us would like to be heard for there are about 17 people such as myself who only have unarmed offenses of second degree robbery, that if resentenced, we’ll be time served or 5 years over the sentencing range.

I’m a different person than I was 12 years ago. A lot of us are now in our 40s, mellowed, tired, and whipped into sense – read to go at the world again… work, pay taxes, rebuild our lives, reunite with family and friends and make our amends for the pain and sorrow we’ve caused. Speaking for myself… I had 2 years clean and sober, had a place, a strong woman, decent job, really thought I won the war against “life on the installment plan”… everyone thought so. But I was introduced to Crack Cocaine for the first time and it got a hold of my life in a bad way. I did what I did. I relapsed and resorted to sticking my finger in my pocket to scare people into giving me money to feed the most powerful addiction one may ever encounter. Today, I live clean and sober. I’m going to school in computer repair and service, trying to have a marketable skill under me in case I do go free again. I’m no saint, but a much better person in today. I did my 8 years of Walla Walla Max Custody time…. Seen a lot of ugliness of every degree, stabbings, shootings, and so on. So I’ve been able to open myself to change as these cages will reach you deep and force a person to review the film of life…. Not turning away at the things we’ve done but ashamed for the way we’ve wasted the best years, regretful for the choices we’ve made along the way. Please, I ask you to look at the 3-strikes law and who it should and shouldn’t be applied to. Take care now.

Joseph S. Wharton.