Episode 139: Learning How to Forgive

May 1, 2020

"The question becomes, when is enough enough?" Today, we're talking about forgiveness.

Martha Minow's latest book is When Should Law Forgive.

Listen to our other shows, This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

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I don't subscribe to the idea that people are bad and I don't subscribe to that because I believe that there is inherent good in everyone I think that crime it's all to be honest with you very relative what might be criminal in some communities or excused in other communities Delia emunah was born in London and raised in Nigeria

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mother is Nigerian and her father is from Sierra Leone she went to college and law school in the United States and then she became a public defender in Washington DC the main motivation for me is that throughout my time at the public defender I learned as a Christian I operate from the prism that if Jesus where on Earth today he'd be a public defender he was always defending people

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people who were accused of various nefarious activities tax collectors and you know prostitutes and and people that we will consider unsavory but as a public defender I got to learn and appreciate that each person has a story and that my role as an advocate was to tell that story in a way that was true to their lived experiences to give

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voice so them I learned to appreciate the fact that but for the grace of God right and that human beings have the capacity for change today we're talking about forgiveness

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I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal

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I'd like to ask you about where you grew up and in Nigeria and and how growing up you saw forgiveness and Justice criminality in differently than we do here right so we're very very communal society and so compared to the US where it seems that it we exist in

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Milo's and a very much individual pull yourself up by your bootstraps sort of mentality in Nigeria we it sort of this mentality that if one person is going astray we all collectively are going astray and so the idea is you know we rally people will rally around you to make sure that that you don't go astray and that that if you do that they are resources particularly human

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human resources to help you sort of recalibrate your life's trajectory and that's really critically important I guess it's kind of a flip the whole idea and on the head which is in other communities when someone does something bad it looks bad upon the community exactly held as opposed to here where if someone does something bad when this person must be intrinsically bad or evil and let's remove them from the society uh

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yes absolutely you absolutely correct here it's you did something you something that you did and in other communities it's like well what how did we fail how could we have prevented this and now that you have indeed some done something what can we do to restore your Humanity what can we do to make sure that you become one of us and the question becomes when is enough you know

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no enough when it's punishment enough when can we say you have paid your dues it's time to welcome you back into society because we still think you've got value we still think there's much more that you can add to being a productive member of our community

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in 2011 a 25 year old woman named LaShonda Armstrong drove her car into New York's Hudson River with her three children inside later LaShonda Armstrong's neighbors came forward and said they knew she was in trouble they often heard yelling her landlord later said that she asked him twice in six months to change the locks on her doors

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Delia Luna wrote about LaShonda Armstrong and other women who'd committed similar crimes she asks how is it that American society Bears no social responsibility to support its most vulnerable members and raising their children she proposes that we watch out for each other not just watch each other but really look out and offer help as she says communities in Nigeria often do

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she writes it's imperative that the legal system take steps to foster a sense of communal obligation towards the most vulnerable members of our society single mothers and their children

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in 2015 Delia emunah was made clinical professor of law at Harvard the law schools first Nigerian professor she's also the deputy director of Harvard's Criminal Justice Institute where third year law students under supervision essentially work is public defenders

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we asked her to tell us about the cases that stay with her the most and she says it's the ones where children are charged with crimes she told us about representing a nine-year-old girl and she was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and she was charged because while throwing a tantrum in a classroom she picked up a book a textbook and threw it at a teacher Miss the teacher the book hit the wall

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all the child was promptly taken to a the principal's office and when she would get there she was then arrested put in handcuffs she was transported at the back of a police car and brought to the courthouse she had to be placed in isolation so in solitary because she was 9 years old and I went in to speak with her so she is this tiny little person and I was trying to explain to her what

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role was as her attorney and Advocate and she had no idea just even processing what that meant and she looked up at me and she said where is my grandmother and when can she take me back to school and then she said to me do you have any food I'm hungry and so there I was trying to figure out you know how to advocate for this child in light of the very serious thing that she'd been charged with I mean assault with a dangerous weapon

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open book but clearly this child and other issues that were contributing to her behavior in class that day and it really will have been a very cruel and capricious thing for the legal system to have to continue its prosecution of her it's easy to forgive a child and and to consider all the social factors and in play in their behavior it's not always so easy to forgive an adult well

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that's correct a you know it's easy when you paint a picture of a very vulnerable child but what about those evil adults and evil men and women who do such terrible things well the truth is an evil adult or a terrible adult just didn't you know pop up from just didn't become that way they've had most likely a terrible

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childhood a childhood where they will likely abused or likely neglected and so you have children who once that's happened to them will indeed grow up to be adults who then commit crimes I don't ever believe that an adult's just takes actions without something being the Catalyst for whatever it is that they they've done and so it might be easier to forgive a child but if you delve deeper into

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the experiences the lived experience of an adult I think it makes it easier to forgive them once you understand what it is that they've been through the prism through which they view life and sort of what's happened to them this is the idea that some defendants need help not punishment oh absolutely I can't think of of anyone that I have represented

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today who says you know what I will wake up the today and I will make this probably the worst day of my life I'm just going to go out there and do something to get myself arrested and get myself in the criminal justice system a lot of a lot of our clients the behavior is really more that if they are hungry they might steal if they have no place to stay especially when it's cold they met trespass and that's a

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I'm heat if they if they have mental health issues that have not been diagnosed they may act in ways they met that might be considered criminal And yet when you really put it all in context it's simply just a cry for help quite frankly and a default position shouldn't be one that's hyper casserole when and we tend to be that way our default position should be what can we do to help we you say

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what you mean by hypercar Cyril so hyper casserole is this notion that we incarcerate people and numbers that will that really just unbelievable so America the United States of America makes up five percent of the world's population and yet we incarcerate 25 percent of the world's population at any given time we have

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over there we spend about 80 billion dollars on our criminal justice system and will lie we have millions of people who on any given day are under the jurisdiction of the jails and prisons we in America you're more likely particularly if you're a person of color more likely to go to jail then you are to graduate then you are to get married that you are to engage in

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of the other you know sort of experiences that you will have in life and so compared to other developed Nations we incarcerate people at a far greater rate and on and on crimes quite frankly that don't require us to to incarcerate people at that level so if you a lot of these crimes are drug-related nonviolent crimes property crimes and you

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you've have us incarcerating people our default position is to be as punitive as possible and and its really sad compared to other developed countries are there some instances where forgiveness in a legal sense should not be an option

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I can't think of one and I have pondered the question about you know and the pushback will be well what if you have somebody who's fixed sample raped and murdered a child and you know that's awful and that's egregious and I when I think of forgiveness I don't think of forgiveness as a complete bar to punishment punishment can be part of forgiveness and so

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with the most egregious situation where the person has committed the most heinous of crimes I will say go ahead and have them have their just punishment because that is part of this forgiveness orc it might be that punishment for a person like that is is life in prison what might be that it's a term of imprisonment but once they've paid their do forgiveness

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I think mandates that we then figure out ways to restore them so I can't think of an instance where someone is beyond Redemption because everybody does have a potential for reform

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do you consider yourself a forgiving person oh my goodness I would love to think so I try I I've mentioned this several times about my faith and and what it instructs me to do and you know the Bible talks about forgiving many times and I there's a

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verse in the Bible where this gentleman is asking Jesus how many times should we forgive and Jesus says you know seventy times seven and so the idea of forgiveness is one that I try to live out daily do I feel sometimes of course but it's something that I am intuitively aware of that it's that should be a part of the way I live my life and conduct my affairs

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and and and because of that I am then able to ask others to forgive the people that I represent yeah so to answer that question I think of myself as a us for giving I have not always been very good at it but I try

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at Harvard Delia emunah met Martha minow Martha minow has been teaching at Harvard Law School since 1981 before that she served as a law clerk at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit and then at the Supreme Court for justice Thurgood Marshall she says she went to law school to get a seat at the table

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she was the dean of Harvard Law School and now she's the 300th anniversary University Professor the highest honor a Harvard faculty member can receive she's written many books in her latest called when should law forgive she's asking quote why a fresh start is permitted in some cases but not others

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why is it so hard to forgive oh boy that's a big I think that there are good reasons even not to forgive I think it's hard to forgive because when you have been wronged when you have been harmed when you have been to me and when you've been violated actually you're very sense of worth is its take your sense of well-being or sense of equality and dignity and I think that we are rightly outraged

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and again I think there's a kernel of our sense of justice and Injustice in that very response I also think for many of us and I include myself in this it's very hard to forgive if the other person has not made amends has not taken responsibility is not said I did wrong and I'm going to be different some religious Traditions say nonetheless individuals should try to forgive others actually say no forgiveness is an exchange in

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dance to the actions by others

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there's a quote in your book that says forgiveness is that active admitting that we're like other people what does that mean I don't think it's by accident that every religion every civilization every philosophy has found a way to support and encourage forgiveness between human beings and often at a societal level I think that the reason that there is such widespread recognition of the value of

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forgiveness by which I think we can mean letting go of Justified grievances there's such a value given to it because interpersonally it allows people to move on even though we have all participated in one way or another in problems and violations of trust even in violence certainly misbehavior and at the same time to to build the strength to get along with each other because we're all imperfect in

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way or another I think that you know civilizations Advance when what was once viewed as a misfortune is understood as an injustice so don't get me wrong I do think Justice matters and and being very clear about when their violations of laws and rules very clear but punishment isn't always the best response and letting go of Justified resentment that's what forgiveness is and I do think that it is a recognition that every society

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it every Community indeed every person is imperfect

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when the South African government implemented apartheid in 1948 segregating white South Africans and non white South Africans the result was incredible violence and brutality it took more than 40 years for the apartheid system to be dismantled and then South Africans had to figure out how to move forward

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starting in 1996 victims were invited to give statements about their experiences of human rights violations and perpetrators were asked to speak about what they had done many of these hearings were public and broadcast live on television the entire country was watching The Truth and Reconciliation Commission offered amnesty to some perpetrators willing to tell the whole truth about their crimes

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Martha minow says this interested her very much because it was an Institutional response that wasn't a criminal trial The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in particular seemed to me to strike a very unusual and important balance between holding people to account but also trying to build a constructive future and creating a setting where individuals could forgive weren't forced to forgive but where

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ideas a whole could come up with with a way to move on and not focus on punishing people after all people in South Africa had been through so much for decades and there were wrongs on all sides that were wrongs committed by the apartheid government for sure but there were also killings committed by the African National Congress and others in the struggle so finding a way to let go and move on was very important at that time tell me about

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the story of the Google e27 in South Africa totally fascinating story so alongside the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were many informal interactions individuals could who had committed violations of Law and crimes against humanity could could seek amnesty if they told the truth if they told the nature of their offenses and one of the individuals who came forward was a black man who had served

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an informant to the apartheid police secret police and he had warned them he had told them that there was a bus coming that had some individuals on it and he said they were activists and they were terrorists and they were dangerous they were activists there no evidence they were terrorists they were all young men and the the apartheid government arranged for that bus to be blown up and they were all killed well the Truth and Reconciliation

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in commission process is going forward and this individual comes forward seeking amnesty and one of the psychologists who was working for the Commissioners Puma ago Poteau Medica Zillow she organized a meeting for the mothers of the victims to meet with this young man who would really was a traitor and the mothers in advance all said they could never forgive him what they had what he had done took their children away and they were also

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serious that he was himself a black South African and it was turning on their Brethren and most of all that they lost their children and they met with him and he apologized and he actually prostrated himself and he showed great respect for these women and it's captured and film actually a amazing documentary called Long Day's Journey Into Night and you can see the women one-by-one forgive him it's a

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just an extraordinary moment and I think the fact that he took responsibility he apologized he showed great respect he participated in the process set up by the country through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that all played a role but I think a huge role was played by just the personal strength and religious beliefs by those women who who felt this was the right thing to do they wanted to allow this man to reclaim a

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sin and Society

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twist sometimes expect to women to forgive more easily than men or black people over white people yes and I think this is a serious concern than not just about the inequality and who gets forgiveness but also the inequality and who is expected to forgive and it's hard not to speculate that forgiveness while a powerful tool for one who's been victimized to reclaim

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dignity to reclaim a position of the power to forgive or not forgive it's hard not to see that often it's people in relatively less power who've developed that capacity to forgive and who may be expected to forgive you know when I went to South Africa to study the Truth and Reconciliation Commission I was so interested to hear people say that they were willing to forgive the individuals responsible for killing or torturing their loved ones until the end

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visual Mark forward with their hand outstretched expecting forgiveness and and to fail to recognize that forgiveness is something to be voluntarily bestowed by those who have been victimized as opposed to something that's a right of the one who has committed a wrong it's not so I think that that's an important reminder about forgiveness has to be a choice

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it seems to me that forgiveness is one of the few things on earth that a human can actually be forced into in a genuine way if it's forced it's not forgiveness to forgive is to have actually the power not to forgive and it's not forgiveness if there is no such power to decline to forgive so I think that's absolutely right and at the same time of course it is really quite an extraordinary

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new power you know if you've ever been forgiven what a difference it makes in your life and you know if you for forgiving someone else that you feel lifted up you feel let that you are relieved of a big burden so it's an extraordinary act between individuals it's more complicated when it's done at a social level who has the right to forgive on behalf of anyone else you know when you had you know President Bill Clinton apologized for the

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Tuskegee experiments on on black Americans who weren't told that they were being made part of medical experiments and some of them actually became ill and died and he apologized and that's a good thing that he did but but you know who's heat to apologize on behalf of people who acted long ago these are tough questions about who can stand in the shoes of anyone else and who can expect to forgive who can apologize and who can forgive

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why do you think the public is more interested in stories of eye-for-an-eye let's say or harsh punishments than they are for stories of Pardons and commutations I mean we seen as you say to be more interested in the pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey than we are someone who has been wrongly imprisoned or rightfully imprisoned for a number of years I think that's the old adage for local news as if it bleeds it leads you know we maybe just structured to be more drawn to

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the extreme and to punishment than we are to the hard work of reconciliation and forgiveness but I also think there's something to blame here of our public institutions you know we don't really teach people in schools how to apologize and how to forgive how to give a real apology rather than the kind of fake apology that says if anyone was hurt you know too bad I'm sorry as opposed to really taking responsibility and I you know I've been teaching law for almost

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40 years and I recently realized we don't really teach people in law school about the tools of forgiveness that are built into the legal system and those tools include pardon power that the executives have but also methods of exoneration and ways in which criminal sentence can be commuted or the use of amnesties for example an immigration violations you know President Reagan famously inaugurated

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an amnesty these are tools that the legal system has and we don't teach about it so I think there's partly some responsibility at the heads of our formal institutions whether it's courts or schools that we don't spend as much time cultivating awareness and expertise in the techniques of forgiveness and we spend more time on the kind of the the raw response to wrongdoing that is a tit for a tat or an eye for an eye part of the book those

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so interesting is the time you spend talking about bankruptcy how is debt forgiveness related to Crime I know it may seem a little unusual it's certainly different area of Life different area of law but I don't think it's by accident that we use the same words we talk about forgiving a debt the same way we talk about forgiving a crime there's a possibility of forgiveness that the legal system recognizes through bankruptcy

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it's actually built into the United States Constitution Thomas Jefferson someone who have fell into debt repeatedly during his lifetime so he knew a lot about it was one of the founding fathers who insisted that there be a provision in the Constitution that authorized Congress to create a national law allowing people to declare bankruptcy and start over and it shares with forgiveness in the criminal system this idea of a restart a fresh start a clean slate

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eight the Clean Slate is an idea that actually came from pubs in England where the bartender was keeping a running tab of who owed money and periodically sometimes would forgive the debts and wipe it clean and say oh you have a clean slate you can start over this possibility of starting over we make much more available right now in this country for many people who have Financial violations who have debt then for people who have crimes so even

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people who have served their criminal sentences in this country often face what we call the collateral consequences of crime like they can't can't vote or they can't have a professional license or they can't get credits they can't live in public housing and they don't have a fresh start whereas people who are declare bankruptcy on are able to start over financially they have to rebuild their credit rating but they actually can go on with their

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lives again the last question I have for you is awesome when you see this huge explosion of True Crime that we're seeing on TV and in movies and in podcasts like this one what do you make of this great fascination with wrong and right and crime well I'm the sense of justice and Injustice is one of the you know the great traits of human beings but so is the interest in stories you know and the stories of True Crime are among the most

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compelling the stories of wrong and a wrong that either is never made right or where there is a response there is a kind of Reckoning kind of Justice mechanism you know think about how many plays and movies at least in Western society and up with a courtroom scene you know it is a huge part of our storytelling Traditions that we use the justice system for the compelling power of adversarial

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processes competing truths you know who will punished and who will be punished who will survive and who will kill free I also think though that there's a great concern and I share this concern about when punishment and when forgiveness are done fairly and unfairly when are they reflecting the biases and the allocation of power in a society do we trust the justice system is it racially biased is it class

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highest same with forgiveness our pardons given unfairly and I think again this deep human need for fairness you hear it among children you know that's not fair this is an important quality that we have a normative quality a quality that says I'm valued I should be treated fairly I think that there's something arresting about forgiveness and it's a seaman again every culture every tradition has

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is deep important stories about forgiveness so I think it's compelling but I also think it takes hard work it's not something that people just do automatically you have to learn to forgive

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Martha minow her latest book is when should wall for give thanks to Martha minow and to Delia Luna

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criminal is created by Lawrence poor and me needy Wilson is our senior producer Susannah Roberson is our assistant producer audio mix by real buyers

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Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at this is Criminal.com we're on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show Criminal is recorded in the Studio's of North Carolina public radio wnc we're a proud member of radio topia from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around one of those podcasts is the other show we make it's called This is Love it's stories all about love and

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family and friendship and forgiveness and this season it's all about animals you can find out more by searching for This is Love wherever you're listening to this right now I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal

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support your criminal comes from better help better help offer secure affordable and professional online counseling they can help you find a licensed counselor they'll be a great fit for you whether you're looking for help with anxiety depression or anything else and it's easy to connect with your counselor through text chat phone or video calls better help is a truly affordable option and criminal listeners get 10% off your first month with the discount code criminal so why not get started today go to better help.com criminal that's better eh

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GL p.com criminal talk to a therapist online and get help