The Denver Post
AURORA — As Sharletta Evans prepared for
her face-to-face meeting with the man who killed her son, she couldn't
escape one uncomfortable but gnawing need — to touch his hands.
"The harm he caused me was through his hands," said Evans, whose
3-year-old son, Casson, was slain in a 1995 drive-by shooting. "The fact
that he actually pulled the trigger, it was something about the hands
that kept coming to me."
But when the opportunity arose May 23, Evans hesitated, uncertain
whether she could follow through with her request of Raymond Johnson,
the man serving life without parole for the murder.
There was so much else Evans needed from Johnson, and it had been so long. He was 16 at the time of his
Sharletta Evans' son Casson was 3 when he was shot to death in a car not long after this photo was taken.
crime,
but he now stood a month shy of his 33rd birthday. She had spent the
years grieving and adapting to the loss of Casson before realizing she
had gone as far as she could on her own.
When legislation last year cleared the way for a pilot program in
restorative justice with the Colorado Department of Corrections, Evans —
who had testified on behalf of the measure — embraced the opportunity
to go first. She and her older son Calvin Hurd, who was 6 when gunshots
peppered the car where he sat sleeping with his brother, began more than
six months of preparation for a direct dialogue with Johnson.
Part of that involved revisiting the crime. Evans had driven with her
two children to a northeast Denver duplex to pick up her grandniece
because there had been a drive-by there the previous night. She left her
sons in the car.
While Evans was inside, three teens drove by and sprayed more than a
dozen shots at the house and car. One struck Casson in the head. It was
later determined that Johnson fired the fatal shot.
Beyond a sheer willingness to participate in restorative justice, the
offender has to meet a three-part test for acceptance based on
demonstrating accountability, genuine remorse and
willingness
to repair harm. Johnson met all the criteria, though on the last count
the only reparations he could offer were honest answers to a mother's
unanswered questions.
Evans had no idea how the process would unfold — only that she needed to do it.
"I felt I'd reached a peak in the healing process from counseling,
prayer, the support of my church," Evans said. "This was one final thing
to receive my complete closure in the grieving process."
Effects kept quiet
Whatever impact the meeting has had on Johnson, the public won't know
for a while, if ever. The DOC has declined requests to interview him
pending conclusion of the process, which includes debriefing of all
parties and assessment of the outcome — something that may take until
the end of the month.
From initiation to completion, every aspect of the sequence remains victim-driven.
"This is not a short process," said DOC spokeswoman Katherine
Sanguinetti. "We don't want this to be a venue for the offenders. This
is about the victim, for the victim."
Although the DOC previously had expressed interest in
restorative-justice options, funding has always been a stumbling block.
Even the recent legislation, pushed by Rep. Pete Lee, D-Colorado
Springs, came with no money attached — only a provision that all
facilitators would be trained volunteers who wouldn't even be reimbursed
for travel expenses.
Lee, a former criminal-defense lawyer,
Raymond Johnson, then 16, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder.
had
his first experience with restorative justice as a volunteer. He saw
how victim-offender conferences worked with juveniles and had an
"epiphany" that they could be just as valuable in an adult setting.
"Restorative justice is equally effective with severe and profound
crimes as it is with minor offenses such as theft of property in a
school," he said. "The effectiveness of the process depends on the
mind-set of the offender and the willingness of the victim to
participate."
The pilot project, in which victims or their relatives initiate the
process, has no impact on an offender's sentence or status within the
DOC. But Lee, who met with all parties before and after the
Evans-Johnson session, noted that such conferences also can transform
offenders and make them better candidates for rehabilitation — or, in
the case of those serving life sentences, less of a management risk.
The preparation with Lynn Lee, the state representative's wife who served as facilitator, was exhaustive.
"There were so many issues," Evans said. "When it came to every
emotion, she'd ask me where was I at. What did I want to say to him? I
really had to dissect every emotion so there were no surprises."
Hurd underwent the same drill with his facilitator, Peggy Evans.
"They were trying to make sure I had my head clear about what was
going on," said Hurd, who works as a landscaper. "I was ready to see
results."
Though his participation was powered mostly out of concern for his
mother's emotional needs, Hurd — who has only a few memories of his
brother — still harbored his own anger and skepticism about Johnson's
remorse.
"If he wasn't seriously remorseful," he said, "then I wouldn't care less what happened to him."
On the morning of May 23, neighbors drove Evans and Hurd to the
prison, where they waited two hours while final arrangements fell into
place. Then, Evans got to the door of the meeting room where Johnson
awaited — and froze.
She felt pain and fear envelop her. She suspects her emotions must
have shown on her face. At the table, Johnson rose from his chair.
"He dropped his head and shook it with such sorrow," Evans recalled,
"as if to say, 'Look at what I've done to this woman.' That gave me the
courage to start moving."
Opening with prayer
Evans requested that they open with a prayer.
Johnson recited an Abrahamic prayer, reflecting his conversion to
Islam more than a decade earlier. Evans prayed in Jesus' name, asking
that the dialogue go well.
Over the course of an intense morning, they each recounted the crime
from their individual points of view. Evans talked about Casson — she
had nicknamed him "Biscuit" — and what he meant to the family. She felt
her voice tremble as she talked about how she had reared her children,
how they shared their days.
Those difficult hours laid the emotional foundation for what would
come later, as they worked through all the ways their lives had changed.
"At times," said Evans, "I let him feel my anger. And at times, we
discussed the divine. Does God have a plan here? How did our paths
meet?"
She told him how, long ago at his trial, she had forgiven him — had
seen through him, straight to his heart, and knew he was more than the
sum of his ill-fated actions that December night.
"And he asked me, 'Why do you think God showed you who I really am
and didn't show my mother or grandmother?' " Evans recounted. "He said
it in a very painful way."
They answered questions and exchanged explanations: Evans about how
she had found the strength to forgive him; Johnson about everything that
happened on the night Casson died, about the better man he had become
in prison.
Hurd felt his anger abate and got the confirmation he sought — that
Johnson's remorse was authentic and that he was "doing something right
with his life." Evans and Johnson resolved to continue their
relationship, a process she told him would require time and patience.
Afterward, she retreated to a downtown Denver hotel and unplugged the
phone to rest, recover and reflect. The experience strengthened her
belief in restorative justice — a message she now relays to the
community.
