On Causes.

Criminal justice is a painful and difficult topic. 

As I prepare for my adventure in 2025 I am already getting some discreet blowback regarding the cause I am supporting: criminal justice reform.

I get it.

Our world has many problems, many of which are deserving of at least equal consideration. So how do you compare the execution of an innocent person with a war, or with the widespread practice of female genital mutilation in some countries, or with human trafficking, and on and on? Do you take a poll? Shall I make a chart and throw darts? Suffice it to say that our criminal justice system is making mistakes that destroy lives and rip apart families and communities. We don’t have to pick the worst problem and settle that first. We don’t have to work on one problem at a time.

I chose this cause because a series of events made it personal. Some of those events involved my own interactions with the courts, law enforcement, and my efforts to seek help from legal counsel. However, most of all I chose this cause because of a happenstance encounter with an innocent man, Charles Raby, who sits on death row in a Texas prison.

The more I looked into Charles’s case the more I realized his plight is not an isolated event and the issues at play are extensive and complex. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I don’t believe it takes an expert to bring light to some of the weaknesses of our system. I suspect that many of you who choose to listen to what I have to say along the trail will be as shocked as I was to discover the realities of how our criminal justice system often works.

Finally, I am a firm believer that bringing light to problems is the first step towards finding solutions. In that regard, I desire to approach this project in a positive vein by presenting possible solutions to the problems.

They say, “justice is blind”. I hope that this blindness does not apply to the many failures in our criminal justice system.