In a 5-year span from the ages of 19 to 24, Dean Fillion, coming from a childhood of abuse, neglect, addiction to alcohol, and guidance provided mainly by other street youth, had accumulated several felony convictions. On his last conviction, he was sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole under Washington's 3-Strikes.
None of his crimes are classified as a "Serious Violent Offense". (1) All are Class B or C felonies classified in the bottom quarter of the state's criminal seriousness scale. (2) In 2001, Washington's Sentencing Guidelines Commission recommended removing Robbery 2 from the 3-Strikes list and evaluating if any form of Assault 2 should remain. Those two crimes happen to be the sole basis of Dean's life sentence. (3)
Below the fold, find commentary by Mr. Fillion and background on his case and the law.
If you live in Washington and agree the law needs reform, we need you. Sign onto Rapid Response HERE. A list of 25 organizations supporting reform is HERE.
STATEMENT BY DEAN FILLION
From a letter to Noemie Maxwell. Used with permission.
As for my path. I grew up living with my mom and she had a few husbands and there was a lot of abuse and neglect on my mother and step fathers' parts. So I started drinking and running the streets when I was young until I got into trouble and had to go live with my dad.
Well, that was all good until I started drinking again and then I got involved with gangs and that's when the trouble really started. But the biggest reason I drank was because I felt sorry for myself and I felt unloved. This biggest problem was I never grew into a man. I did things men do, but my maturity was always a kid.
I chose my friends as my family because they were going through the same type of problems I was. So we all had something in common. And there was a common companionship need and we were all it.
All these crimes are alcoholic related and in neither Robbery 2 did anyone get hurt. In this last one (name of co-defendant) mentioned a weapon because we were actually scared because we thought the clerk was going for a gun. That's why he said that. (4) But even so, now that I've been sitting here for almost thirteen years, I think how foolish and dumb I was. Freedom and family are so important that committing crime is just not what it seems. Though I did not have family support then, I have it now. This prison helped me grow into a man and saved me from a death on the streets.
Locking people like me up for the rest of our lives is not the answer. Drug-alcohol treatment, educating, and giving someone options, those are what we need. (5) We need to be shown a better way. Locking us up and throwing away the key is giving up.
I have grown into a man and now regret all of those bad choices I ever made. But one thing that has changed dramatically for me is I am now really close with my family and that's something I never really had up until now.
Plus, I know without a doubt I could live and work and pay taxes and follow the laws as my family does and live a normal life.
I have had a lot of time to think about all this. I would like one last chance. But I can't do that without society's help. Please give us one more chance.
UNEQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW
Dean Fillion is hostage to a politics that, year after year, bars the implementation of a simple, common-sense reform. His convictions are on the 3-Strikes list of "most serious crimes", a ballot initiative designed and driven by special interests. Elsewhere in the state's criminal code they are defined as lower seriousness crimes. Washington is the first 3-Strikes state in the nation and the National Rifle Association was its biggest funder.
For 10 years, state legislators have introduced legislation to implement recommendations made by the state's Sentencing Guidelines Commission. This reform would remove Mr. Fillion's crimes from the 3-Strikes list. When the bills get traction, conservative talk radio broadcasts the alarm to its listeners and the bills fail to pass. It is politics -- not public safety -- that has kept Washington from implementing these reforms.
Taxpayers are held hostage to these politics too. Washington State Institute for Public Policy puts the annual cost of imprisonment at $32,000 (6) -- and notes that, with additional costs to the taxpayers in lost taxes and other expenses, the actual cost to society is double that. Used for more effective crime reduction purposes, this money would prevent more crime.
Defendants like Dean Fillion, with no convictions for serious violent offenses were much more likely to be sentenced under 3-Strikes in the early years of the law. In the first 7 years of 3-Strikes, from 1994-2000, approximately 100 defendants with no Serious Violent Offenses were sentenced under the law. In the second 7 years, that fell to about 40 defendants. In the first seven years of the law, 47 defendants were sentenced to 3-Strikes for a third strike of Robbery 2. In the second 7 years, that fell to 5 defendants. If Mr. Fillion faced the same charges today, he would be very unlikely to be given a sentence longer than seven years: the standard maximum for a Robbery 2.
At his trial, Dean tried to plead to a theft -- a non-strike crime. He was opposed by the prosecutor. Janice Ellis, now the Prosecuting Attorney in Snohomish County where Dean was sentenced, entered office years after his conviction. She has stated on the record that she feels that Robbery 2 and Assault 2 should not be on the 3-Strikes list. Prosecutors now acknowledge -- and statistics demonstrate -- that there has been a shift in prosecution patterns. (7)
THE HARM CAUSED BY CRIME IS AN ARGUMENT FOR, NOT AGAINST, REFORMING 3-STRIKES
The trial transcript for Mr. Fillion's third strike indicates that he made no verbal threats or physical contact in his theft -- and that he netted what was probably less than $20 of merchandise. (4)
Despite this low level of direct violence or harm, there's no question that he caused harm with his actions. It's traumatic -- and a serious interference with livelihood -- when a person feels fear in the work place. A cashier in a 7-11 is especially vulnerable. Robberies are a common and potentially life-threatening hazard of a job not likely to provide a living wage or health benefits -- for people not likely to have many other places to turn for employment.
The seriousness of this harm is an argument against, rather than for 3-Strikes. Over-incarceration reduces the money available for crime-fighting investments that are more effective and less fiscally and socially expensive. These investments include education, treatment for addiction, family and youth counseling, job training, and cops on the street. (5) Effective use of scarce crime-fighting funds not only reduces the number of store clerks who become victims of crime -- but it also gives young people, including underpaid store clerks and street youth, more opportunities to better themselves.
The moral dimension to this issue outshines all other arguments for more proportional sentences. Laws that discard human beings in retaliation for lower seriousness crimes -- especially those that disproportionately catch poor people and youth emerging from abusive childhoods -- model a disregard for human worth that is far more callous and destructive than that shown to a store clerk during a Robbery 2.
Notes
- RCW 9.94A.030
- RCW 9.94A.515
- Sentencing Reform Act Review, 2000/2001, State of Washington, Sentencing Guidelines Commission.
-
AN EARLY MORNING 7-11 SHOPLIFT GONE BADThe circumstances of Lawrence Dean Fillion's third strike crime, summarized by the diarist from the Verbatim Report of Proceedings, State of Washington v. Lawrence Fillion, 1996
On February 13, 1996, Dean Fillion's 24th birthday, he rode with friends in the early morning hours to a 7-11. Their plan was to shoplift beer and cigarettes. From the outside of the store, Dean recognized the clerk as someone he'd had an argument with several days before. Thinking the clerk would probably remember him, he stayed outside.
Inside, the clerk confronted the two men when he noticed several packs of cigarettes missing from a display. The three began to shout at each other and Dean, hearing the commotion, came inside and joined the argument. After a minute or two of a loud exchange of insults, the clerk reached behind the counter. One of Dean's co-defendants, thinking that the clerk might be reaching for a gun, said: "Well, if you got your gun, good, cause we got ours." No weapon was present. At trial, the clerk testified that he remembered no verbal threats having been made by Dean.
After the gun comment, Dean walked away from the group to the back of the store where he got a beer from the refrigerator. Then he turned around and walked past his two co-defendants, who were grabbing merchandise from the counter and knocking over display racks. He picked up a pack of cigarettes from the floor and exited to the outside. Soon after, his two cohorts ran out of the store and the group drove away. They had been inside the store for less than 5 minutes.
The trial transcript indicates that Mr. Fillion made no threats, made no physical contact, and netted what was probably less than $20 of merchandise.
-
INVESTMENT PER YOUTH: $2,380.
MONEY SAVED PER YOUTH: $49,776
"For the functional family therapy (FFT) example, we find that the program costs, on average, $2,380 per juvenile participant... The 18.1% reduction in recidivism rates that we expect FFT to achieve generates about $52,156 in life-cycle benefits, measured in terms of the tax-payer and crime victim costs that are avoided because of the reduced long-run level of criminal activity of the youth. (Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Crime and Criminal Justice Costs: Implications in Washington State. Elizabeth K. Drake, Steve Aos, and Marna G. Miller, Washiongton State Institute for Public Policy. Published in Vitims and Offenders, Vol 4 No. 1, November 2003, pp. 1-35.)
ANNUAL ESTIMATED COST IN WASHINGTON FOR 3-STRIKES FOR LOWER SERIOUSNESS CRIMES: $2.5 MILLION
"Statistics have long shown that crime is an occupation of the young, so imprisoning offenders beyond the age at which they would have likely given up their criminal ways brings little benefit -- but big expenses." (1 in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections. Pew Center on the States, 3/09.)
Approximately 1/3 of nearly 300 3-strikers in Washington State (between 100 and 120 individuals) have never been convicted of a Serious Violent Offense, as defined at RCW 9.94A.030. Their crimes are primarily robberies, burglaries, and lower-level assaults. Of that number, about 80 individuals will have already served more than the maximum standard term for their third strikes by 2010. (Two Strikes and Three Strikes: Persistent Offender Sentencing in Washington State Through June 2008. 2/09. Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission.) Incarceration costs about $32,000 annually per inmate in Washington. (6)
NUMBER OF YOUTH THAT $ WOULD HELP EACH YEAR: 1,050.
ANNUAL ASSOCIATED SAVINGS: $52 MILLION.
If we shifted the $2.5 million per year spent on incarcerating people past their maximum standard sentences for lower-seriousness crimes under 3-Strikes to Family Functional Therapy -- we could help 1,050 youth ($2.5 million divided by $2,380 per youth for FFT.)
At savings of $49,776 per youth in averted crime, that translates to $52 million per year. These figures do not begin to capture the benefit that many people then avoid becoming the innocent victims of crimes.
- Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Crime and Criminal Justice Costs: Implications in Washington State, Washington State Institute for Public Policy. Published in Victims and Offenders, Vol 4, No. 1, 11/08.
- See Changing Patterns of Prosecution.
