This is a guest post by my colleague Steve Drizin, William M. Trumbull Clinical Professor of Law and co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Bluhm Legal Clinic of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law:
Congratulations to Ericka Lessane and Robert Cotter, two former students in the Bluhm Legal Clinic, who did stellar work on the clemency petition of Thomas Kim. Today, Thomas read the words that every applicant for a pardon hopes to see:
Now Know Ye, that I, JB Pritzker, Governor of the State of Illinois, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution of the State, do by these presents PARDON Thomas Kim.
In 1993-1994, Thomas Kim, then only 15-16, and several of his friends from Von Steuben High School, executed a plan to rob a computer store and then a bank. Inspired by the Patrick Swayze/Keanu Reeves surfer/bank robber film "Break Point," the teenagers donned masks, armed themselves, and made a lot of noise as they scared the employees of these businesses half to death. They filled their van with computer equipment and stuffed their bags with cash without leaving a trace.
The crimes were a success. Until they weren't. Teens talk. They always do, especially when under the influence of alcohol. One of their group let slip their secret, probably at a party, and before long, Thomas found himself surrounded by Chicago Police Department officers, assisted by FBI Agents, with guns drawn as he was driving his mother to the store. Soon, Thomas was in a heap of trouble. He was automatically transferred to criminal court (this would not have happened today as a result of work done by our Children and Family Justice Center) and was looking at some serious hard time for multiple Class X felonies.
Thomas pled guilty to multiple counts of armed robbery and was sentenced to six years in the IDOC (this was the age of the "juvenile superpredator" and such sentences were hard to come by, particularly if you were African-American). Thomas, whose father was born in Korea and whose mother was born in Vietnam, caught his first break when his judge let him wait until after graduating high school before starting to serve his time. After months of pumping iron and working out, Tom walked off the commencement stage and into the Illinois Department of Corrections. Two and one-half years later (this was before "truth in sentencing"), Tom, who had taken college courses while in prison (this was when such classes were available), walked out of prison and on to the leafy campus of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Tom graduated two years later with honors and a Journalism Degree.
I met Tom in 2002 at a juvenile defender conference when he was working as a journalist covering the court and crime for a San Antonio newspaper. He wasn't sure of his next steps but was contemplating either teaching or becoming a lawyer and was worried he could not work in these fields with his criminal convictions. My students (Brad Hall and Emily Sweitzer) and I agreed to represent him in what ultimately turned out to be an unsuccessful effort to get him a pardon. (Rod Blagojevich was much less merciful with others than Donald Trump was with him).
Sixteen years later, Erika and Robert mounted a new effort to win Tom a pardon. In those intervening years, Tom applied to and was accepted by the University of North Carolina Law School (Bravo!) where he met a number of clinical teachers who would inspire him to become a public defender (Tamar Birckhead, Jojo Liu, Maureen Pacheco, Gene Nichol, Duke's Theresa Newman, etc.). His pardon application was supported by letters of support from all of his former clinical teachers, past and present PDs, and even Shon Hopwood, the former bank robber turned appellate lawyer and Georgetown law professor. Cook County State's Attorney, Kim Foxx, filed a letter in support of Tom's petition even though one of the victims of the robbery, still haunted by the crime all these many years later, objected (we tried to meet with the victim and/or see if she was willing to do victim/offender mediation, but she declined).
For the past decade, Tom Kim, has been employed as a criminal defense trial attorney at Legal Aid in Manhattan where he especially enjoys representing teenagers and young adults charged with crimes. He frequently shares his story with his clients and now has the perfect ending to his quest to find mercy and forgiveness in the criminal justice system.
When I called the usually reserved Mr. Kim to tell him he had been pardoned, he was ecstatic. "I can't wait to hang the pardon certificate up on my wall", he told me, "so that my clients can see it." Now 43 and well-established in his career, Tom Kim didn't really need the pardon, he wanted it. As he said in his petition:
I am seeking a pardon because I would like to be judged on the person I am today, and not on the basis of the acts I committed as a teenager. I recognize that what I did was wrong and that I caused a lot of hurt and anguish to many people. It is especially because of the hurt that I once caused that I am so committed to bringing positive to change to the lives of the people I meet today. Being granted a pardon, in a sense, is the ultimate sign of the growth I’ve undergone during my life.
Today, I do not ask for clemency for myself. I am asking for a pardon to prove to people, particularly young people that it is never too late to make a change in your life for the better and that redemption is not a byproduct of luck. Instead, redemption is the product of true self-awareness and a commitment to self-growth.
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