Chapter 10 #2
“Good morning, everyone. My name is Dionte Henry. Before I start, I would just like to thank every member on the board for coming out to hear me today. I don’t want to stand here and make up any excuses for the actions that I made when I was seventeen years old, so I won’t.
I was young, reckless, and living life like there wouldn’t be any consequences for my actions.
I take full responsibly for the messed-up choices that brought me here and caused me to spend the last 37 years of my life incarcerated.
That’s the past, and I can’t change it. What I can do is change my present, and the future, so with that, I’ve spent every day since I’ve been here, trying to become a better man.
I’m nothing like the young man that I was when I walked into the system,” he started, and I was emotional listening to his words because I was literally listening to a man beg and plead for his freedom.
I’ve never heard my dad talk this proper. I was used to every other word that came out of his mouth being a curse word.
This was just my dad’s opening. He didn’t have to go into specific details yet, so when he finished, he went back towards Sevyn. Sevyn, who knew how to work whatever room that he was in, he walked up to the front, so that he could face the members of the parole board now.
“Good morning. I’m Sevyn Crawford. I’m counsel for Mr. Henry.
We’re all here today with the support of Mr. Henry’s family, along with the institution.
My client has spent close to forty years behind bars, and I believe with his good record dating back to the last fifteen plus years, it’ll show that he’s more than ready to come home.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Henry for the first time a couple of months ago.
I remember his daughter telling me that him and I carried on like we knew each other all this time, when in fact, it was our first time meeting.
His character makes him likeable. He has a calmness about him.
I met with a man that just spent 37 years in prison, so I didn’t know what I was going to see.
Every time I’ve come to the prison to see him, he always has a smile on his face.
I saw his record, saw the things that he took part in in the past, and I just know that that person isn’t the same person that I’ve been talking with these past couple of months.
He’s changed for the better,” Sevyn started.
For over five minutes, Sevyn was up front, selling my daddy out to be the best person in the world.
He came with facts. He came with some of the great things that my dad had done while he was locked up.
He talked about my dad getting his GED, his job that he had in prison, where he would be on cafeteria duty.
He talked about the life skill courses that my dad was enrolled in, behavioral therapy, and even some parenting classes.
My dad was into art, and drawing, so Sevyn even showed some of the creativity that he’s done while incarcerated and that the art room that they had at the prison, my dad was responsible for painting it.
So many good things Sevyn had to say about him.
The correctional officer that brought my dad in here, he was an older man and took to the front of the room as well, going for the board, letting them know that he’s been at this prison since my dad came in as a teenager, and he saw the growth in him.
His words brought tears to my eyes because he spoke about my dad as if he was a grandfather that wanted his grandson out of the system, so that he could go on, and do better with his life.
Now, it was my dad’s turn to go back to the front, so that he could give his final remarks. When he finished, they were going to make their decision.
“As you can see, I’m a changed man. In the time that we’ve been here, you’ve been informed about the work that I’ve put in here with different programs, plenty of work assignments, and my growth as an individual.
If anything was made clear to me during my time here, it’s the knowledge that I gained on what I took from someone else.
I came into the system when my daughter was only one years old.
I remember that afternoon vividly in the courtroom.
She was sitting in her mama’s lap, probably thinking that she was going to be in my arms soon, but it didn’t work like that.
I missed out on just about every milestone of her life.
I missed when she learned how to walk, talk, and just grow up.
I only got to spend one birthday with her, and that was her first birthday.
Today, my baby is sitting behind me, and she’s thirty- eight years old.
She doesn’t know what it feels like to grab lunch with me, go to the movies, none of those things.
All the things that make her happy, I’m ready to come home, and experience them with her,” he said, and his words had me softly crying.
My mom had her hand on my back, rubbing it in a circular motion, while Tank was holding my hand tightly in his.
“All I’m asking from you all is an opportunity to come home and do the work with my daughter that I wasn’t able to do.
I want to be accountable as her father. As you can see, I’ve done the work while I’ve been here, so I really hope that you can find it in your hearts to allow me to do the work on the outside,” he finished.
With watery eyes, I looked at the members of the parole board, and you could see that he’d moved just about all of them with his words. Even the mean ass white lady sitting on the end dropped her head, and I could have sworn I saw her wipe a tear.
We watched the way they talked amongst each other.
They literally only talked for about a minute or two, and that same white woman that has been fuckin with my nerves since I’ve been here, she cleared her throat again, and my head was spinning to the point that it felt like I was getting ready to pass out because I knew that this was the moment where she would state their decision, and for that, I was scared shitless.
“Mr. Henry, on behalf of myself, and the members of the parole board, we would like to thank you for your remarks today. We would also like to extend our thanks to counsel, the prison staff, along with your family members that you have present. Moving right along, I just want to say that the board does not minimize the severity of the offense that brought you here before us. As a result of your actions, a life was lost. That will always be. Nothing that was said here today, or presented to us today will ever change that,” she was firm, and I literally started shaking.
I was crying. My crying progressed because it didn’t sound like she was headed in the direction that I wanted her to. I felt like it wasn’t going to work in my favor.
“However, we don’t bring people before us with hopes of erasing their past. We come here to determine if individuals are the same person that they were when they committed said crime.
You’ve proven to us that you aren’t the same person.
Based on your rehabilitation here, your institutional support, and all the facts that were shown to us this morning, we find that you are suitable for release,” when she said that, my head dropped down into my lap, and I cried out, feeling a relief in my body that I’ve never felt before.
I could hear screams and cries coming from my family as well because we had all been here, hoping for the same thing.
My daddy was coming home! I spent the last 37 years of my life coming to this prison, sitting in visitation rooms, where I had to be told how long I could hug him, or talk to him.
Collect calls that were constantly monitored.
Seeing him in shackles like this. It is all over now. My daddy was coming home!