Maryland’s Second Look Act has passed the State House, and now awaits a vote in the Senate. The bill would allow prisoners to request judicial review of their sentences after serving 20 years of prison time. Advocates say Maryland’s prison system is in desperate need of reform; parole is  nearly impossible for longterm inmates, and clear racial disparities in arrest and incarceration are immediately evident—72% of Maryland’s prisoners are Black, despite a state population that is only 30% Black. Meanwhile, opponents of the Second Look Act charge that the bill would endanger state residents and harm the victims of violent crimes. Rattling the Bars digs deeper, speaking with activists, legislators, and formerly incarcerated people on the real stakes and consequences of the Second Look Act. Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Jheanelle K. Wilkins (Maryland State Delegate, District 20): Colleagues, I rise in support of this legislation, the Maryland Second Look Act, but it may not be for the exact reason that you would think. For me, this legislation is about justice. Was justice served in this sentence? We know that in Maryland, Black residents are 30% of the population, but 72% of our prisons. Our own Maryland data tells us that Black and Latino residents are sentenced to longer sentences than any other group or any other community. I’m not proud of that. Was justice served? For us to have a piece of legislation before us that allows us the opportunity to take another look at those sentences for people who were 18 to 25 years old when convicted, for us to have the opportunity to ask the question, if justice was served in that sentence, why would we not take that opportunity colleagues? If you believe in fairness, if you believe in making sure that our justice system works for all, then colleagues, you will proudly vote yes for this bill. Mansa Musa: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. According to press releases published by the Maryland Second Look Coalition and the ACLU, “The Maryland House of Delegates passed The Second Look Act on March the 17th, recognizing the urgent need for reform in a state with some of the nation’s most pronounced citizen disparities.” The Second Look Act, House Bill 853, passed a final vote in the House. The vote was 89 yeas and 49 nays. Now, the bill will move over to the Senate, where it has until April 7 to pass. Delegate Linda Foley, representing the 15th District, who voted yes on the bill, sent a statement to The Real News Network providing some critical context. “The Maryland Second Look Act follows many other states, including California, Oklahoma, Colorado and New York, to allow a judicial review of sentences. The Second Look Act allows the individual who was convicted between the ages of 18 and 25 years old to request a review of their sentence by the court after serving 20 years in prison.” Delegate Foley goes on to cover the details of what this bill achieves. She states, “It’s important to note the critical safety measures in the Maryland Second Look Act. The bill does not guarantee release of any individual. It allows an individual who was convicted between the ages of 18 and 25 years old to request a review of their sentence by the court only after serving 20 years in prison. A judge must evaluate individuals based on strict criteria, including the nature of their original crime, threat to the public, conduct while incarcerated, statements from the witnesses, et cetera. The court may only reduce a sentence if it finds an individual is not a danger to the public and that a reduction of their sentence is in the interest of justice.” Recently, I spoke with two members of the Maryland Second Look Coalition, William Mitchell, a formerly incarcerated community activist, and Alexandra Bailey, a two-time survivor of sexual violence, about the organizing they are doing around the bill, and why it’s important to support The Second Look Act. William Mitchell: The Second Look Coalition is a group of people who come from all different backgrounds, some being returning citizens, some being people in the political realm, some being professors, and we all support what we call The Second Look Act. The Second Look Act is essentially, when an inmate has served 20 years day for day, the judge would have the authority to possibly review that inmate’s sentence, to see if the sentence is still warranted after the person has done tons of things to change their life. Alexandra Bailey: The Second Look is a mechanism that is being considered all across the country, and the reason it’s being considered all across the country is because America, for a long time, has led the world in incarceration, and part of the reason that we’ve led the world in incarceration is because we have a hammer and we think everything is a nail. We’ve addressed everything from poverty, trauma, veterans’ PTSD, domestic violence survivors’ responses, young children who are led astray by giving them lengthy prison terms, and we know that this doesn’t keep us safer. This has been statistically proven. If you’re a survivor of violent crime as I am, I think the one thing that all of us would agree on is that we want no more victims. We want a safer society. We want people to be okay so that everyone can be and stay okay. The first criminal offense that I ever lived through happened when I was a minor. It was a sexual offense, and the person who perpetrated that against me is serving a life without the possibility of parole sentence. I was plagued with the pain of this for many years, for a lot of my childhood and early adulthood, and as I came to my faith and came to forgiveness, what I wanted was to understand why this had happened. I reached out to the person who harmed me, and what I learned is that he had also been harmed. He also had been sexually victimized as a young person, really had nowhere to turn in order to gain support, and lived out the natural consequences of pain, PTSD, lack of health and support, mental health support, and I ended up caught in that cycle of violence. What I say is, we need to get way upstream on the cycle of violence. Everyone, from those who are remorseful inside to those who are advocates for survivors, as I am, we have the same goal, and the only way that we’re actually going to address that is by taking our resources away from a public safety concept that we know doesn’t work, which is mass incarceration, and transferring it where it should have been, when the person who harmed me suffered his victimization. If that help had been there, if he had been able to go to a crisis center, receive the mental health support that he need, have the education and access that would have allowed him to divert his life and recover from his own trauma, I more than likely would not have been traumatized. As a survivor, I’m here promoting Second Look because actually, if you take a look around at who our peer recovery specialists are, who our violence interrupters are, our credible messengers, the people who are out getting in the way of other people’s victimization, it is our returning citizens who have kept the peace not just in prison, but are now keeping the peace outside, and based on my own faith, I believe that people who are remorseful deserve a chance at forgiveness. We all deserve a second chance. Also, from a practical standpoint, if my goal is that nobody suffers from what I suffered from, then the people who are best suited to help me, unfortunately in many instances, are currently behind bars. Mansa Musa: Brian Stevenson says, we’re not our worst mistake. All right, William, let’s unpack the Second Look, because earlier, we talked about how this allows for a person, the bill that’s being proposed, and you can go over the bill that’s being proposed, after a person has served 20 years, they’re allowed to petition the court for a modification, or to review their sentence, and take certain factors into account. Why can’t they do it anytime? I know under Maryland’s system, don’t you have the right to modification sentence? Don’t you have a right to a three-judge panel? Explain that for the benefit of our audience that doesn’t know the criminal justice system, and understand that. William Mitchell: Our Maryland rules, specifically it’s Maryland rule 4-345, subsection E, what it does is, it allows for a judge to have the authority to review a sentence, but that reviewing power is only from five years from the imposition of the sentence. Meaning, if you have a lengthy sentence, no judge is really going to consider, within five years, if you have a lengthy sentence for maybe a serious crime, if you’ve changed your life. Most people’s thoughts on it are, if you’ve committed a heinous crime or something that’s bad in public view, you need to sit for a long time, which may be true. Some people transition, grow and mature at different stages and different ages. My crime, I was 23, so I really wasn’t developed. I had a very immature mindset, though an adult technically, by legal standards, I was still very immature. The law right now, as it sits, say you get 50 years for an attempted murder. You’re 20 years old, it occurred when you were on drugs, maybe you were gang affiliated, family structure was broken. And then what happens is, you sit in prison, and right now, as the law stands, you could go into prison, take every program, become a peer specialist, work to transform everybody that comes through that door, and unless you are collaterally attacking the legality of your sentence, there is no legal means for somebody to have a judge look at their case for compassionate reasons, or to see if the very system, because the Maryland Department of Correction, their job is to correct criminalistic behavior, but right now you have a department that is supposed to be correcting it, and if they do, there is no legal avenue for you to bring it to the judicial branch and say, “Hey, DOC has done her job. This behavior has been corrected. Now, what’s the next step?” The system was set up many years ago to punish, to correct behavior, and then in that correction or rehabilitation, to allow the person to assimilate back into the community as a productive member. That has been taken away over the years because one law is added on top of another law, which moots out the point of the first law, and before you know it, you can’t get out. For me, I had a 70-year sentence. That means I would have to serve half of the sentence, 35 years, before I could go for parole. Meaning, I committed a crime, intoxicated at 23, coming out of a broken background, and I would have had to have been 53 to show the parole board the first opportunity to say, “Hey, I’m worth a second chance.” Most people age out of criminalistic behavior, number one, and number two, if you commit in your 20s, by the time you’re 30 something, you don’t even think like that. I always bring this point to anybody’s mind, whether an opponent or an advocate, nobody can say that they are the same person they were 20 years ago. I would like to meet somebody if they can stay the same from 20 years ago, because just life in general will mature you or change you. Right now, there’s just no way to bring it before the judge or a judicial body, to get any relief. Even if you change your life, right now, you’re pretty much stuck in prison until, if you have parole, you might get the opportunity to possibly get relief. Mansa Musa: Alexandra, talk about what you look for in this particular narrative, because as William just outlined, we do a lot of time, we don’t have the opportunity to get relief. We do good works while we’re incarcerated, and we have no way of having that good work brought to the attention of someone that can make a decision. Talk about that. Alexandra Bailey: Well, Second Look is just that, it’s just a look. It is not a guarantee of relief. It is not a get out of jail free card. It is literally a mechanism whereby, after two decades of incarceration, where the criminological curve shows us that most people have aged out of crime, that you can petition a judge to show your rehabilitation, and the survivor of your offense or their representatives get to be part of that process. Some of the most miraculous moments that I’ve ever seen are those moments of forgiveness. There’s this false story that goes around, that what prosecutors are doing is giving permanent relief to victims. I’m going to give them, in William’s case, 50 years before anybody can even say hi, and that’s going to heal you. That’s going to make you feel better. Mansa Musa: That’s what you mean by permanent relief? Alexandra Bailey: That’s what they would say. It’s permanent relief. We are making sure that this person stays safe permanently. Now, there are some people who do not rehabilitate, but in my experience, they’re very much in the minority. The people who do rehabilitate, like I said, they’re the ones raising other people in the prison, getting them out of criminal behavior, and all we’re asking is that the courts be able to take a look. When the survivor steps into that room, and I’ve witnessed this, and actually receive the accountability, the apology, the help that they need from the system, that is where the healing comes in. It’s rarely through punishment. You know that this is true because I watch survivors who have not moved on a single day from the day that this happened to them, and if you’re reliving that trauma day by day, what that tells me is that you haven’t received the mental health counseling, support, grief support that you needed. Why don’t we focus on that and rehabilitation, as opposed to permanent punishment? To what William was saying, the criminological curve tells us that people age out of crime. Crimes are more often than not committed by young people who very frequently are misguided, and that is certainly true for Maryland, with a particular emphasis on the Black and Brown community. There was actually a national study that was done of survivors, which I was actually interviewed for, 60% of us who have survived specifically violent crimes are for more rehabilitation and second chances than we are for permanent punishment. Permanent punishment doesn’t get us to what it is that we need, which is a safer society, a more healed society, a society that when things are going wrong for folks, there is a place for them to turn. Our lack of empathy and kindness is not serving us. Mansa Musa: Also, I had the opportunity to talk to Kareem Hasan. Me and Kareem Hasan were locked up together in the Maryland penitentiary. He’s talking about some of the things that he’s doing now that he has gotten a second chance. I’m outside of 954 Forrest Maryland Penitentiary. I’m here with Kareem Hasan, who’s a social activist now, both us served time in the Maryland Penitentiary. When did you go into the Maryland pen? Kareem Hasan: 1976, at 17 years old. Mansa Musa: All right, so you went in at 17, I went in at 19. When you went in the pen, talk about what the pen environment was like when you went in there. Kareem Hasan: Well, when I went in the penitentiary, like you asked me, the first day I went in there, I walked down the steps and it was just confusion. I was like, “Where am I at now?” People were running everywhere, all you hear is voices and everything. It was like you were in the jungle. Mansa Musa: Now, what type of programs did they have to offer when you went in there? Kareem Hasan: Well, when I went in there, they had a couple of programs, but I wasn’t too interested in the programs because I was still young and wild, running wild. I wasn’t even thinking about educating myself. All I was thinking about was protecting myself, because of all the stories I heard about the penitentiary. Mansa Musa: Right. All right. Now, how much time did you do? Kareem Hasan: I did 37 years. Mansa Musa: Okay, you did 37. I did 48 years. When I went in the penitentiary, they had no programs, like you say, and everything we were concerned with was protecting ourselves. When did you get out? Kareem Hasan: I got out in 2013, on the first wave of the Unger issue. Mansa Musa: The Unger issue is the case of Merle Unger versus the state of Maryland, that dealt with the way the jury instruction was given at that time, it was unconstitutional. I got out under Unger. When Unger first came out, what did that do for you in terms of your psyche? Kareem Hasan: Oh man, that really pumped me up. Mansa Musa: Why? Kareem Hasan: Because I saw daylight. Mansa Musa: And before that? Kareem Hasan: Before then, man, I was gone. I was crazy. I wasn’t even looking to get out, because I had a life sentence. Mansa Musa: Right. Didn’t you have parole? Kareem Hasan: Yes, I went up for parole three times. Mansa Musa: And what happened? Kareem Hasan: First time, they gave me a four-year re-hear, and then the second time, they gave me a two-year re-hear with the recommendation for pre-release and work release. Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: Then they come out with life means life. Mansa Musa: Glendening was the Governor for the state of Maryland at that time. Kareem Hasan: Yeah, he just snatched everything from me, snatched all hope and everything from me. Mansa Musa: Hope, that’s where I want to be at, right there. When Unger came out, Unger created Hope. Kareem Hasan: Unger created hope for a lot of guys, because when it first came out, I think it was Stevenson. Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: I had it in my first public conviction in 1981. Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: But they said it was a harmless error. Mansa Musa: Right, right. Kareem Hasan: And then, Adams came out, and then, everybody kept going to the library, and everybody was running back and forth. Everybody was standing in those books, because they saw that daylight, they seen that hope. Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: And then, when Merle was fortunate enough to carry it all the way up the ladder to the courts, the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, they made it retroactive. Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: All that time we were locked up, it wasn’t a harmless error. They knew it, but they just kept us locked up. Mansa Musa: And you know what? On the hope thing, you’re supporting the Maryland Second Chance Act. You’ve been going down to Annapolis, supporting the Maryland Second Chance Act. Why are you supporting the Maryland Second Chance Act? Kareem Hasan: Look at me. I’m a second chance, and everything I do, I always refer back to myself. I’m looking at these young kids out here in the street, and when I talk to them, they relate to me. I need more brothers out here to help with these kids out here, because y’all see how Baltimore City is now. These young kids are off the chain, and they need somebody that’s going to give them some guidance, but they’re going to listen to a certain type of individuals. Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: They’re not going to listen to somebody that went to school, somebody that’s a politician or something like that. They’re looking for somebody that’s been through what they’ve been through and understands where they at, because that’s all they talk about. Mansa Musa: When you went into Maryland Penitentiary back in the 70s, you said ’77? Kareem Hasan: ’76. Mansa Musa: You had no hope? Kareem Hasan: Oh, no. I had a fresh life sentence. Mansa Musa: Right. When Unger came out, then we had legislation passed to take the parole out the hands of the governor, that created hope. Then we had the Juvenile Life Bill, that created hope. Your case, had you not went out on Unger, you’d have went out on Juvenile Life, because they were saying that juveniles didn’t have the form, the [inaudible 00:22:12] to do the crime. Well, let’s talk about the Maryland Second Chance Act. Based on what we’ve been seeing and the support we’re getting, what do you think the chances of it passing this year? Kareem Hasan: I think the chances are good, especially the examples that we set. We let them know that certain type of individuals, you can let out. Now, there’s some people in there I wouldn’t let out, but the ones we’re talking about will help society, will be more positive for the society, especially for Baltimore City, and we need that. Mansa Musa: Yeah. Kareem Hasan: The Second Chance Act is something that I support 100%. Mansa Musa: What are some of the things you’re now doing in the community? Kareem Hasan: Well, I have an organization called CRY, Creating Responsible Youth. Mansa Musa: What is that? Kareem Hasan: It’s a youth counseling and life skills training program, where we get kids, we come to an 11-week counseling course. After they graduate from the counseling course, we send them to life-scale training courses such as HVAC, CDLs, diesel training, and things of that nature. The program is pretty good, and I’m trying to get up off the ground more, but I need some finances. Mansa Musa: How long have you had this idea, and how long has it in existence thus far? Kareem Hasan: Well, when I first got the idea, I was in the Maryland House of Corrections, because we had a youth organization called Project Choice. Mansa Musa: That’s right. Kareem Hasan: I had a young guy come in, and the counselor told me, he said, “Hi son, can you talk to him?” He can’t relate to any of us.” I took the kid on a one-on-one, and the kid said, “He’s trying to tell me about my life, but he’s from the county. He never lived like me. My mother and father are on drugs. I’ve got to support my brother and sister. I’m the one that’s got to go out there and bring them something to eat, because my mother and father take all that money and spend it on drugs.” Mansa Musa: Yeah. Kareem Hasan: The kid said, “He doesn’t understand my lifestyle, so how is he going to tell me about my lifestyle?” And then he looked at me and said, “Now see, where you come from, I can understand you. We can talk.” Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: “Because I know you understand where I’m coming from.” Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: “Because you’ve been there.” Mansa Musa: Right. Kareem Hasan: He got to talking about his mother and father, and he started crying. When he started crying, I was telling him about when my father passed, when I was on lockup, and I was in my cell crying. Mansa Musa: Right, right. Kareem Hasan: And then, later on that night, I was in bed, and it just hit me. I said, “Cry, create a responsible youth.” That’s how I came up with that name, and just like those boys in the penitentiary, they’re crying out, just like in the Maryland state penal system, the ones that’s positive and they change their life, they’re crying out for help, and we’re here to help. We’re here to create responsible youth. Mansa Musa: Last, you will hear from Bobby Pittman, who was in the Maryland Prison system and is now out, a community organizer and leading a bully intervention program. This is what he’s doing with his second chance, in the interest of justice. Robert Pittman: Bobby Pittman, I’m from Baltimore. I’m a Baltimorian, and I actually went to prison when I was 17 years old. I was sentenced to a life plus 15 year, consecutive 15 year sentence at 17 years old, for felony murder. Mansa Musa: How much time you serve? Robert Pittman: I served 24 years on that. Mansa Musa: Okay, come on. Robert Pittman: The crazy thing, it’s been a year and a few days, it’s probably been 370 days I’ve been free. Mansa Musa: Yeah. Come on. Welcome home. Robert Pittman: Thank you. Since I’ve been out here, it’s been amazing. The things that I learned while I was inside of prison, actually, it carried over, with me out here. Within the last year, I helped 50 people get jobs with a connection with the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development. Shout-out to Nigel jobs on deck Jackson. Mansa Musa: Okay, Mr. Jackson. Robert Pittman: We’ve got individuals, like a couple of mothers, single mothers into schooling. Mansa Musa: Okay. Robert Pittman: With full scholarships. Got 10 people into schools, people that never believed that they’d have an opportunity to get their education. We got about 10 people in school. And then, I did all that through my peer recovery knowledge, my lived experience, and understanding where these individuals come from, and assessing these individuals, seeing some things that they might need or whatever. Mansa Musa: Right. Robert Pittman: You know that you can get that. You can do that. Mansa Musa: What made you stop, once you got to a point where you said you needed to change, what made you get to a point where you started looking and thinking that you can get out? What inspired you about that? Robert Pittman: This is crazy. I actually fell off. I was on lockup one time, and I heard all this screaming and yelling. I’m like, “What is this screaming and yelling for?” It was 2012. Mansa Musa: Yeah. Robert Pittman: They’re like “The law passed.” I’m like, “What law?” They said, “The Unger, the Unger’s passed.” People on lockup are screaming and all this stuff. I can hear, on the compound, individuals screaming and celebrating, and things like this. The crazy thing, they were screaming and yelling about a chance. Mansa Musa: Come on, yeah. Robert Pittman: You know what I mean? It wasn’t even a guarantee. Mansa Musa: I got a chance. Robert Pittman: All they know is, I’ve got a chance, because I’ve done exhausted all of my daggone remedies. Mansa Musa: Yeah. Robert Pittman: But I’ve got a chance right now. Mansa Musa: Come on. Robert Pittman: To have my case looked at again. Mansa Musa: Yeah. Robert Pittman: That’s when it started. Mansa Musa: Right. Robert Pittman: That’s when it started. The Ungers went out, it wound up being 200 and something. Mansa Musa: People started seeing people going home. Robert Pittman: People I’ve been looking up to, now they’ve taken my mentor. My mentor is gone. I was happy for them, but now, it made me like I had to step up more, because I had to prepare for my chance. I see it now, Maryland. They said that they had a meaningful opportunity for release through the parole system. Mansa Musa: Right. Robert Pittman: But there wasn’t one person that got paroled since 1995. Mansa Musa: That’s right. Robert Pittman: It was a fight. It took about six years, but it gave us hope. We’re just waiting. Mansa Musa: Oh, yeah. Robert Pittman: We’re sitting there like, “Man.” Six years later, 2018, that’s when it was an agreement with the ACLU and Maryland courts that we’re going to restructure the parole system. Mansa Musa: Right, for juvenile lifers. Robert Pittman: For juvenile lifers, and on that, they created a whole new set of criteria that an individual on parole, or going up for parole had to meet. If they meet these things, the parole commission has the opportunity to release them. I started going through that. I went through it, went through the whole process in 2018, went up for parole and all that, was denied at my first parole hearing, of course. I saw people going home. Mansa Musa: Yeah, through the system. Robert Pittman: I’m sitting there like, “Oh man, I saw somebody go home from parole. This is real.” The first couple I saw, I’m like, “Oh, this is real, now. I see how real this is.” Mansa Musa: Right. Talk about what you’re doing now. Robert Pittman: Now, I do peer recovery work. I’ve got a nonprofit, Bully Intervention Teams. What we do with Bully Intervention Teams, it’s not your average bully intervention. We look at all forms of injustice as bullying. Mansa Musa: Right, you’re talking about bullies. Robert Pittman: Yeah, all forms of injustice is bullying. One of the things that I see, I was seeing bullying when I went down to Annapolis this week. They’re bullying individuals through misinformation. This organization will try to make sure these individuals that receive this misinformation will receive proper information, because they’re being bullied through ignorance. It just was horrible. What we do on the weekend, Saturdays, individuals that were incarcerated, a lot of people look at them, “They’re doing good,” but they don’t know the stress of that, because you know what you’re representing. You’ve got to be a certain type of way, because you’re trying to be an example for these individuals. You’re trying to pioneer for these individuals that come out. Mansa Musa: Yeah, you don’t hae the luxury make a mistake. Robert Pittman: We have our session, our peer-run session, where we can just relieve ourselves, because it’s a lot of pressure. Mansa Musa: Oh no, that’s there. You’ve got a wellness space. Robert Pittman: We need it. Mansa Musa: You’ve got to have it, because like you say, our reality is this here. We don’t have the luxury of making a mistake, and everything that we’ve been afforded, and every opportunity that we have, we don’t look at it as an opportunity for us. We look at it as an opportunity to show society that we’re different. Therefore, the person that I’m talking about, who I’m representing on their behalf, I’m saying that I’m different, but this person I’m asking you to give the same consideration that y’all gave me is also different. We want to be in a position where we can have a voice on altering how people are serving time. One, we want to be able to say, if you give more programs, if you give more hope, you’ll meet your purpose of people changing and coming back out in society. But more importantly, we want to be able to tell the person, like you said, rest assured that you’ve got advocates out there. The ACLU of Maryland and advocates urged the Senate to pass The Second Look Act, House Bill 853. For those that are interested, the hearing for The Second Look Act, House Bill 853, in front of the Senate Judiciary Proceeding Committee will be held Tuesday, March the 25th, 2025, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM, in the East Miller Building, room two. For more information, visit Maryrlandsecondlook.com, or ACLUMaryland.org. There you have it, the real news and Rattling the Bars. We ask that you comment on this episode. Tell us, do you think a person deserves a second chance, and if giving a person a second chance is, in fact, in the interest of justice. Photo of Linda Foley in committee by Maryland GovPics (CC 2.0). Link to license​. ...read more read less