Putting a Black Face on White Power. In photo, Black Clone, Harold W. Clarke, director of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

From [VAPilot] Snagged by a short-lived state law, some Virginia inmates have served more time behind bars than many murderers, even though they harmed no one in their crimes and had never been in prison before.

In some cases, their prison terms will stretch far longer than those of convicts who fatally shot, stabbed or bludgeoned people, a Virginian-Pilot investigation has found.

This disparity stems from a 1982 “three-strikes” law that, largely during a 12-year period, has caught inmates in its clutches for decades.

Young men barely old enough to vote went from first-time offender to three-striker in one swift motion. They weren’t the career criminals for which three-strikes laws are generally written. More often than not, their crimes were committed in a single spree. And plenty of them had little or no prior criminal history.

The Virginia Department of Corrections dished out this heavy punishment – ineligibility for discretionary parole – behind closed doors. It didn’t come from a prosecutor , nor did it happen in a courtroom in front of a judge, as is generally the case in other states. Nameless and faceless government bureaucrats within the DOC wielded the power to classify inmates as three-strikers when they entered prison.

But in some cases, the inmates say, the DOC didn’t inform them that their prison term was being dramatically extended until after they’d been locked up for many years – sometimes more than two decades. And those inmates say they never knew such a change was even a possibility.

Snagged by a short-lived state law, some Virginia inmates have served more time behind bars than many murderers, even though they harmed no one in their crimes and had never been in prison before.

In some cases, their prison terms will stretch far longer than those of convicts who fatally shot, stabbed or bludgeoned people, a Virginian-Pilot investigation has found.

This disparity stems from a 1982 “three-strikes” law that, largely during a 12-year period, has caught inmates in its clutches for decades.

Young men barely old enough to vote went from first-time offender to three-striker in one swift motion. They weren’t the career criminals for which three-strikes laws are generally written. More often than not, their crimes were committed in a single spree. And plenty of them had little or no prior criminal history.

The Virginia Department of Corrections dished out this heavy punishment – ineligibility for discretionary parole – behind closed doors. It didn’t come from a prosecutor , nor did it happen in a courtroom in front of a judge, as is generally the case in other states. Nameless and faceless government bureaucrats within the DOC wielded the power to classify inmates as three-strikers when they entered prison.

But in some cases, the inmates say, the DOC didn’t inform them that their prison term was being dramatically extended until after they’d been locked up for many years – sometimes more than two decades. And those inmates say they never knew such a change was even a possibility.

At 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds, he was good enough to play for Norfolk State University, recording 14 tackles as a freshman in 1981. But a knee injury sidelined him and led to surgery.

After the operation came painkillers. Fields became dependent on them. He eventually weaned himself off the pills and gave football another go, this time for a couple of local semi-pro teams.

Then it happened again – he hurt the same knee. More painkillers.

This time, when the pills ran out, Fields turned to cocaine. He lost his wife and his shipyard job and snorted away his savings. He needed money to keep the ride going. That’s when he turned to robbery.

It didn’t take him long to get caught. As part of plea deals in Portsmouth and Virginia Beach, he was sentenced to more than 80 years in prison. He has served about 25 of it and, minus time off for good behavior, has 20 more to go. He’ll be 75 years old when he gets out, if he survives that long.

One day in late September, Fields, 55, sat in an office in the Greensville Correctional Center, an hour and a half west of Norfolk, to talk with a reporter.

He wore blue jeans and a blue short-sleeve T-shirt. He has an easy smile, and his eyes look blue, but Fields said they change colors. His mother used to say they would change with his mood. Inmates call him “Red,” on account of his light skin tone.

Fields has hearing aids in both ears, the result, he said, of working in the prison’s noisy wood shop, where inmates make furniture. He has a scar on his right arm from carpal tunnel surgery, and he said he needs the same surgery on his left arm.

Fields is not a bitter man; he knows he made the choice to rob stores, no matter how much extra time the three-strikes law has given him.

“It’s heartbreaking because I wasn’t raised this way. I let not only myself but I let my family down,” he said. “To carry that hurt, it was kind of hard. I had to learn how to forgive myself.”

More time in prison than murderers

The majority of the inmates interviewed for this story have been in prison longer than Fields.

All of them have spent – or will spend – far more time behind bars than the typical first-degree murder convict.

First-degree murder convicts who were released between 2011 and 2017 served an average of 22.8 years in Virginia prisons, according to the DOC.

“I didn’t murder anybody. Nobody was physically assaulted or hurt during these robberies,” said Marvin Vaughan, a three-striker from Tidewater who has been locked up since 1986. “I took money, and it’s a crime. I understand that I committed a crime. But I’m today watching murderers walk out of prison, and I’m still here.”

The DOC said it can’t say how many three-strikers are in prison now under the 1982 law – only that 262 inmates fall either under this law or a similar one affecting drug dealers convicted of three such offenses.

However many there are, the inmates are expensive. According to DOC’s latest numbers, the annual cost per person to house them is almost $30,000.

This is a group that some say has been all but forgotten. Inmates who committed crimes so unspeakable that they sit on Virginia’s death row draw support from those who oppose capital punishment. But three-strikers have been largely left to fight their own battles.

“There’s nobody out there looking at three strikes. They’re nobody’s problem,” said Wimberley, who has been focusing her pro bono work on three-strikers since 2011. “They’re just guys who committed a certain type of crime at the very worst possible moment in Virginia criminal history. They’ve been screwed by the system and forgotten.”

The plight of the three-strikers got attention in 2015, when Gov. Terry McAuliffe created a commission to review parole issues. One of the commission’s findings was that many inmates may have been improperly classified as three-strikers and that a review was needed.

Several legislators had already considered the 1982 law a problem for years. Some tried to change it but never got enough support. Politicians don’t want to look soft on crime.

The ACLU and others mounted a plan in 1996 to challenge the constitutionality of the 1982 law through a class-action lawsuit, but the lawsuit never happened, and several people who worked at ACLU during that time couldn’t remember why. [MORE]