What is Justice?

Does justice depend on how a victim and their family/friends feel, or how the accused family and friends feel, or how biased Judicial officers define justice, or maybe Justice is what society says it is? 

The dictionary defines Justice as;

 Justice - is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspectives, including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity, and fairness. 

Murder. There is absolutely no excuse to justify taking another person’s life. Life is precious and should be treated as such.

Like in America, most civilized countries have laws that establish consequences for people who commit crimes where a life was taken due to a person's violent act. 

In America, the consequences of committing murder of another human could be;

The death penalty - lethal injection;  Immoral
The death penalty - life in prison without parole;  Immoral and inhuman
 Or 48 years or less. 
All depending on the circumstances and prosecuting attorney's morals, values and beliefs. 

Let me share a story about a man who has spent nearly three decades in prison. 

Sammie Denson Jr.

That day in the year 1993, the court records show Sammie Denson was called to come home from a night out partying and using large amounts of cocaine and alcohol with friends, for an emergency by another roommate.  Once home, Sammie unexpectedly observed his live-in girlfriend being intimate with a man he knew.  The prosecution argued that Sammie shot both victims. His girlfriend sadly passed away, her male friend lived. Because of prior domestic violence charges that had been filed but Sammie had never been convicted for and because while Sammie was intoxicated he told another man who drove him home that he would “kick someone's ass if someone was messing (harassing) his girlfriend.”,  the prosecuting attorney argued Sammie planned, plotted, and schemed to shoot both victims and charged him with first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole where he has been for 30 years.

Sammie is no serial murderer. Sammie was not involved in any gang-style murder. Sammie is not a habitual criminal. This was Sammie’s first time in prison, where he has been for nearly 3 decades. 10,950 days.

Sammie is very remorseful for his actions that caused so much pain in 1993. Statement from Sammie, “I am deeply remorseful and I take full responsibility for my actions. This is something I carry on my heart and I will live the rest of my life making amends.” and “I had asked the victim and their families for forgiveness and mercy. Now, I ask Colorado’s Governor Jared Polis and the citizens of the state of Colorado and the world for forgiveness and mercy. I am not the man I was in 1993 - 29 years ago.”

This remorse has caused him to work so hard on changing the man he was into the man he is today. The man Sammie was in 1993 is on the complete opposite end of the continuum to the man of 2022.  He has given his life to his Lord. He lives by the principles of the “Good Book”.  He also participated in all of the inmate programs that the Colorado Department of Corrections has assigned to him for his rehabilitation. Sammie has taken his rehabilitation very seriously and has taken programming above and beyond what was required of him to participate in. 

Sammie has matured into a mentally/ spiritually strong man, who has been rehabilitated. Sammie had gradually changed his behavior to that of a responsible man that supports the community he lives in.  It was not easy by any means but worth all the hard work.

Today Sammie is an OFFENDER CARE AID (O.C.A) II , with a Department of Corrections O.C.A. III certificate. Sammie’s client is a 75-year-old man in bad health physically and mentally. Five days a week Sammie has to make sure the man gets his medication 3 times a day. Sammie also must take him to all his meals and medical appointments. He is also a listening ear for this gentleman.

Sammie is a CERTIFIED PEER ASSISTANT and CERTIFIED MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID VOLUNTEER. He is on-call and works with many inmates that may need mental health help at any time day. 

Sammie will soon be a CERTIFIED MENTOR that will help prepare men for re-entry into society. 

Sammie has created cognitive-behavioral programs such as Recondition Our Minds Effectively (ROME), and a gang prevention program called Keep Our Brothers Elevated (KOBE) that he had facilitated inside his veterans' pod. Yes, Sammie is a veteran that served three years in theUS Army successfully.

Sammie is not a management problem. He has worked hard to be a model prisoner and is respected by correctional officers and inmates. He is trusted among the staff and has received much praise for his strong work ethic, respectfulness, and eagerness to grow as an individual.

Sammie L Denson Jr. will be filing his clemency requesting a Commute Sentence. He is not challenging the sentence he was given but instead asking for a sentence reduction based on the 29 years he’s served thus far and all the hard work to be a truly changed man.  Sammie will always be a convicted murderer and a sentence reduction would never change his conviction or remove the label of a murderer.

Sammie is asking for your support in his clemency by signing this petition of support.  Sammie is praying that millions of people in America and beyond will not only support his commute sentence BUT also have open debates concerning death sentences called life in prison without parole and who does this type of sentence serve.  If Sammie did or did not do the crime he was convicted of, that he wrote about in his book, he has already spent nearly 3 decades in a living hell called prison for the murder of his live-in girlfriend and wounding her male friend. What more can he give after nearly three decades in prison? To seek his life (his death) is not justice, it’s revenge.

64 countries impose life without parole, inflicting cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment and denying prisoners the fundamental right to hope.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that a life-without-parole sentence “condemn[s] [the prisoner] to die in a living tomb, there to linger out what may be a long life…without any of its alleviation or rewards—debarred from all pleasant sights and sounds, and cut off from all earthly hope. 

Pope Francis said before the U.S. Congress in 2015, “A just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”

For those opposed to the death penalty, a sentence of any length may sound like a better alternative. But locking people away and throwing away the key is not a moral solution.

The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) state that rehabilitation to reduce recidivism is a key purpose of imprisonment. Life imprisonment often goes directly against this aim, by removing the prospect of rehabilitation and thereby undermining the right to human dignity.

People tend to “age out” of crime. Research shows that crime starts to peak in the mid to late- teenage years and begins to decline when individuals are in their mid-20s. After that, crime drops sharply as adults reach their 30s and 40s. Sammie is a 57-year-old man, not the 27-year-old adult he was in 1993 - 3 decades ago.

A commute sentence would allow Sammie an opportunity to make a positive impact on the larger community, not just the incarcerated community. He has detailed plans in for his future. He wants to open a non-profit that serve the communities needs and offer programs such as K.O.B.E and R.O.M.E. He has connected with someone outside the Correctional Department and is working closely with this person who has educational degrees in Psychology, Social work, and Criminology (Criminal Justice). Their plan going forward is to serve young people in troubled communities who are living self-destructive lives, involved in drugs, violence, domestic violence, and gang activities that have literally taken over many communities. 

He also looks forward to being reintroduced into his 6 children's and 14 grandchildren's lives which he would like to play an active, positive, and loving part of. 

We hope you will sign this petition to ask Governor of Colorado Jared Polis and the Clemency Board to commute the sentence of Sammie Denson Jr. You can contact Governor Jared Polis at Governorpolis@state.co.us or at 1 (303) 866-2885

If you would like to help, even more, you can call the Executive Clemency Board in Denver, Colorado at (303)-763-2431 or email @ doc_clemency@state.co.us to let them know you support Sammie’s release and request Sammie’s Clemency packet be reviewed ASAP.

Help to send him home so Sammie can help his community and change lives for the positive.