Today, Explained - #FreedMeekMill

Episode Date: September 4, 2019

Rapper Meek Mill was arrested on drug and weapons charges as a teen in 2007, but the case didn't close until last week. NPR's Bobby Allyn explains how a police officer and a judge helped keep Meek Mill in the criminal justice system for over a decade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From what I can see, biking to work and stuff, kids are going back to school around this time. And if they're getting into school, that means they're probably getting into projects. And if they're getting into projects, why not get them into a KiwiCo project? KiwiCo is offering today's Explain listeners the chance to try them out for free. To redeem the offer and learn more about their projects for kids of all ages, visit KiwiCo.com slash explain. What's good, y'all? I'm Gene Dempey, one of the hosts of the Code Switch podcast at NPR. And I'm sitting in Sean Ramos from his chair, bodying all of his snacks while he's on vacation. He's back tomorrow. Wow. I went through puberty midway through the sentence.

This is Today Explained. Today. Today Explained. Today Explained. All right. So if you're from Philly and under 40, you know know Rameek Williams, a.k.a. Meek Mill. He's tall, he raps in a voice that sounds like a police siren. Meek is really nice with the rappity raps, and his stock and trade are verses that make you want to beat people up. He started getting buzz on mixtapes and radio shows and YouTube videos back in the mid-aughts when he was a teenager with dingy braids. Meek went from being a local dude with a lot of buzz to a big-ass deal.

He went on tour with Nicki Minaj, and then they started dating. He was signed to Rick Ross' label and then later to Roc Nation, which is Jay-Z's label. And when the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018, still one of the greatest moments of my life. Please welcome the NFC champion, Philadelphia Eagles! They came onto the field to Meek Mill's anthem, Dreams and Nightmares. Hold on, wait a minute. Y'all thought I was finished? When I wore that ass tomorrow, y'all thought it was ready? rhythm dreams and nightmares it's the kind of song that makes you feel like you can run through a wall it's not surprising they played it when they ran out onto the super bowl field it's the

kind of song that is also not remotely appropriate for primetime television and the eagles won that game but meek was not there to bask in what was probably the moment of his greatest notoriety to that point. Because at that very moment, he was behind bars serving a prison sentence for violating his probation. See, Meek caught a gun charge and a drug charge back in 2007 when he was 19. And by the time of the Super Bowl, he had been ensnared in the probation system for over a decade. Basically all of his adult life. I was a criminal justice reporter in the very courtroom where this whole Meek Mill saga went down. I was there almost every day for about five years. Bobby Allen is a reporter for NPR, but back in the 2000s, he was a local criminal justice reporter covering Meek Mill's

legal case in Philadelphia's Criminal Justice Center almost every day. So Meek Mill walks into the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia,. So Meek Mill walks into the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia, gets on an elevator, goes to his courtroom, and he waves his right to a jury trial, meaning the judge is both going to decide his guilt and innocence and punish him if he's convicted. A cop comes on the stand and says, look, I'm a Plain Coats police officer. I was in South Philly. I saw this guy riding a bike. I stopped him because I thought he was selling drugs and he was selling drugs. We got into a fight. Meek pulled his gun at me, pointed it at me, and I arrested him. And here we are today. That was the testimony of the cop. But other officers have disputed that story. Sworn statements claim Meek Mill

tossed away a gun and never pointed it at officers. It's alleged now retired officer Reginald Graham lied as to nearly every material fact in his testimony at trial. When this all first went to trial when Meek was still a teenager, the judge went with the arresting officer story. Meek was convicted and he was sentenced and he spent eight months in prison. So after he served his eight months, he was released to the streets of Philadelphia, but then was under supervision for five years. But that was far from the end of Meek's legal troubles. This was supposed to be over after, what, less than six years?

It ended up lasting his entire adult life. Meek was on probation, which meant he had to do a ton of little things all the time. Sometimes you have to submit a urine sample to make sure you're not on drugs. Sometimes you have to do community service. Sometimes you have to make on-time payments for your fines and fees that are associated with your case. And the way probation works is that if you mess up any of these things, you can get sent back to jail. Philly rapper Meek Mill has just been sentenced to two to four years in state prison after a judge today found him guilty of violating his probation.

In Meek's case, he left Philadelphia County and was caught leaving Philadelphia County. And that violated a technical rule of his probation, which was don't leave city limits. We should say that like the geography of Philadelphia is such that you could leave the city limits and not even know. You would cross the bridge into Cherry Hill in New Jersey. I remember at one time I was in a car with my cousin who was on probation, and she started freaking out because she realized that we had just gone across the bridge, and she was technically outside of the city limits. This happens all the time.

In fact, a third of the current jail population in Philadelphia are people who have violated their probation or parole, have not been re-arrested most of the time. They literally have just tripped up on their rules, and they're sitting behind bars because of it. Jay-Z even calling the sentence for the parole violation unjust and heavy-handed, sparking the Free Meek Mill movement. Free Meek Mill! Free Meek Mill!

Just give me like two seconds, and we can keep the show going, but I gotta say something. Got a young man by the name of Meek Mill. He caught a charge. He was like 19. He's 30 now. He's been on probation 11 years. Fucking 11 years. For someone like Meek Mill, who has the wealth and the power to have some of the most high profile voices imaginable advocating for him, who is able to afford

some of the most seasoned high flying litigators in America, he's going to get special treatment because of that. And even with someone with amazing wherewithal and resources, it took him 12 years to beat this thing. So imagine if you're just a normal working class Philly guy, Philly woman who is on probation, who's on parole. You're going to face a really uphill battle trying to actually finish this thing and get out from underneath it. So who's making the major decisions throughout Meek's probation? Janice Brinkley is a trial judge in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia in the Criminal Justice Center, CJC. She is tough. If you're a defense lawyer, you have a tough case against your client and you think this is going to be a tricky one to try to get some leniency and you see that the case was assigned to Brinkley,

you say, oh shit, frankly, I mean, it's not going to be a good situation for you, right? So that's the context of Brinkley. But the course that their relationship took was very unusual, some would say outrageous. She was someone who, every month or so, would meet Meek in the courtroom, and they would go over. What'd you do the past month? Did you pay your court fines and fees? Did you submit your urine sample? It was that kind of interaction every couple months.

And over time, it became increasingly tense because this judge showed just how extraordinary she was in that she was taking these unusual steps to insert herself into his personal life to the point where Meek says, look, you have a personal vendetta against me. Meek Mill's bid to have his case moved to another judge was shot down in court today. The rapper's lawyers are now accusing that judge of being biased and unfit to do her job. I was in a court hearing once and I was actually sitting right next to Nicki Minaj because Minaj and Meek were dating at the time. And Brinkley took a break. And she said, let's all go to judges chambers. So everyone walks back. They shut the door. It's me, an Associated Press reporter, and like seven other defendants waiting for their case to come up. There was like no other national media there or anything. It was a pretty low key hearing. They come out and Minaj's eyes are wide open. She has this look of shock on her face. And Meek is kind of like, has this smirk on. And I'm

thinking, what just happened behind there? What in the world? Meek Mill was allowed to leave court today with his significant other, Nicki Minaj. After the judge spoke with a couple privately, we don't know what they said. It later comes out. Meek says, well, Brinkley, the judge said, hey, why don't you record a boys to men song for me? And in that song, give me a shout out. Yeah, I'm sorry. Must be laughing. No, I mean, it's pretty odd for a judge to ask a recording artist who is a defendant in your courtroom to give you a shout out in a song. That's example one. Wait, wait, wait. What was the song? On Bended Knee. Is that?

If you come back to me, I'll get you. What? I'm just thinking of Meek and Boyz II Men being mashed together on Bended Knee. I don't understand how that works. You will be the new one. I'm going to drive on these bitches on St. Got you. Pull out the streets. Me, me. Okay, so that was one of their run-ins.

Yes. Another run-in was in New York City. He was shooting a music video, and there's a section of the city where he was riding a dirt bike and popped a wheelie. This wasn't in an area where there was ongoing traffic. It was blocked off for the shoot, And an officer saw him and arrested him. That was a violation. There was a scuffle at the St. Louis airport that I won't even get into it, but all the facts are disputed. Somehow it involved Meek, allegedly.

Boom. Violation. He was supposed to submit a urine sample to make sure that he wasn't doing drugs. And the probation officer said he actually submitted cold water and not his actual urine. He denies this. Boom. Violation. He once went on Instagram and disparaged the judge.

The judge said that was a violation. Okay. Is a judge allowed to stalk your IG like that? Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Judges in these cases have unlimited discretion. Judge Brinkley controls the whole criminal justice path of Meek Mill. In the criminal rule books in Philadelphia, can you look up posting something on IG and that being a violation? No. Can she do it from the bench? Yes. She can do whatever she wants. She has all the

discretion. She's the judge. But after she saw that Instagram post trashing the judge that Meek made, she required that he take social media etiquette training, which I didn't even know that existed. There's some people we work with that probably need that. I'm sure my bosses think I need social media etiquette training. Man, what did she said or done in response to that criticism? So all of the examples that we talked about, she disputes the details of them. I won't get into all of it. But when you go to the Boyz II Men example, she says, well, actually, the defense lawyer at the time was the one who raised the idea of maybe, you know, doing a Boyz II Men cover and giving me a shout out. It wasn't I who brought it up. But when it comes to the way that she has overseen Meek's case, she's like, look, he has a lot of money. He's got deep pockets. He's kind of a celebrity in the hip hop world. I'm not going to treat him any differently than any other defendant. She says, I care about fairness and I'm trying to be fair to this defendant as I am every other defendant who walks in my courtroom. So after this all comes out about Brinkley, what happens?

There's then a long protracted legal battle. He's denied a few times when his lawyers make requests that Brinkley ought to be kicked off the bench and it should be reassigned. Finally, it gets to the highest court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which takes a hard

look at this and says, not only did Brinkley do some things that are outside the lines of what a judge should have been doing, but the only witness in his trial is this plainclothes cop who has since been discredited. He was accused of stealing money from a drug dealer and then lying about it under oath. And his name appeared on a do not call list in the DA's office because he wasn't trusted. He's no longer with the Philadelphia police force, but he was the sole witness who convicted Meek. And even though this information later was known to Brinkley, she didn't want to reexamine her decision. Well, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said, too bad. He's getting released from prison. He deserves a new trial.

And eventually they enter a plea bargain. He pleads out to one firearm count. The rest of the charges against him are dismissed. The judge, this guy Leon Tucker, who inherited the case, it was his first time entering the Meek Mill case, says, Meek, this has been a long road for you. I'm going to not impose any further penalty. The book on this is closed. You can walk out of the doors of the CJC a free

man. This thing is over. And that happened last week. Meek free. I'm not on probation no more. I don't have to go to court no more. Thank you. I appreciate that a lot. Yeah. And I just wanted to come up here myself and thank all the supporters, because I know y'all probably got family members in jail or people going through the same thing as me. And I will continue to do what I do with the reform movement and help the people that help me. So I thank y'all. Thanks for coming out and standing for me a thousand percent. So is there any chance he could go back into the system for this? There's no way that he is going to wind up back in jail, back on probation for this particular case.

That's not to say that Meek can't be arrested again for something else. I mean, who knows? It's hard to, like, you know, predict that kind of thing. But you ask yourself, is this an outlier case? Yes. But are there some ways in which it's this an outlier case? Yes. But are there some ways in which it's not an outlier case where a judge abuses discretion, a judge goes beyond the bounds of the role of being a fact finder in a courtroom and sentences you and then keeps you on probation your entire adult life and then inserts herself into your personal life? It just really does make you

lose faith in the criminal justice system in some fundamental ways. Coming up after the break, probation is an alternative to prison. So why are criminal justice reformers and activists saying it's a problem? I'm Gene Demby, and for Sean name up to the judges, tell them facts. Tell them how we funding all these kids to go to college. Tell them how we ceasing all these wars, stopping violence. Trying to fix the system in the way that they designed it. I think they want me silent. Shush.

I remember this one time I was scrolling through KiwiCo's projects over at KiwiCo.com slash explained where right now today explained listeners can go and learn more about KiwiCo's projects for kids of all ages and try them out for free. Anyway, I was really surprised to find a project that was basically one of those like arcade claws that you drop down and pick up prizes. It didn't come with a whole bunch of prizes, of course, that would be unsustainable, but it came with like little yarn balls and it seemed like a cute idea to get a kid to actually build one of those, maybe teach them the concepts behind how one of those things works. And then the other day, I got to talk to a kid who actually got that project and she loved it. She was talking

about the colors of the yarn balls. She was talking about how much fun it was to build it with her mom. For me, what can I say? It just confirmed that KiwiCo's projects help spark creativity and confidence in kids of all ages and so can you by going to KiwiCo.com slash explained. Probation is supposed to be an alternative to going to prison. It's kind of a hybrid of social work and supervision. And so it's supposed to be a helping hand, but also a watchful eye. In reality, what that means is that there's a really big watchful eye and there's not much of a helping hand. Nazgul Ghanoush is a senior research analyst at the Sentencing Project who studies and advocates for criminal justice reform. She told me why she's taking a second look at probation, even though

it's supposed to be the less punitive option. It's definitely a less traumatic experience than going to prison and being separated from your community. But what happens with criminal justice a lot of times is that when we think about how to create a policy that's not as severe is that we significantly widen the net. There are now about twice as many people in the country on probation or parole compared to in prison or in jail. So four and a half million people on probation or parole versus 2.2 million in prison or jail. Wow. Yeah. So nationwide, one third of people going to prison are there because of a probation or parole violation. A significant proportion of those people are there

for what's called a technical violation. And a technical violation can be something like missing a meeting with your probation officer or a drug test that you failed. It's much easier to be incarcerated for a probation violation and an alleged new offense when you're on probation than if you were charged for a new crime. So the quality of legal counsel that you get, the bar that they have to pass in order to prove that you're guilty of the crime that you were charged with, all of those things have a lower standard when you're on probation supervision. So let's talk about race for a second. What does the population of people who are currently on probation look like in America?

So right now, about 45% of the people that are on probation in the country are people of color. And, you know, the same kinds of factors that create biases in imprisonment also play out in probation as well. So, for example, what neighborhood do you live in and how likely are you if you're committing a crime in that neighborhood to be caught? Well, if you live in a high crime neighborhood and you're more likely to be a person of color, then something very trivial that you do is more likely to bring you in contact with police officers. But there's also just the individual bias of any probation agent, probation officer that plays out in terms of when you trip up, how they use their discretion. Will they think that you're actually on a good

path and you've just made a mistake and they should give you another chance? Or will they think, aha, you know, you've proven yourself to be someone who's not trustworthy, not safe, and should get reincarcerated. And race really has a major force in shaping that kind of evaluation that people make. Probation was supposed to be an alternative. It didn't work. So what's the alternative to the alternative that probation was supposed to be? So I think, you know, one of the traps with probation is to think about it as an alternative to incarceration and think the alternative to probation, one of the best alternatives for many of the millions of people on probation, is no probation, no criminal justice record, but instead support. The kind of social work support that people might need, making sure that their state has expanded Medicaid so that they can access substance use treatment and mental health care if they need that. You know, getting people access to the kinds of things they need to live healthy, productive lives without punishing them when they fail to do that, given the limited resources that they have. We should add that these reforms have

not been without controversy. This year, Pennsylvania's Correctional Officers Union criticized the effort to scale back probation and parole after five parolees were linked to homicides. Two of the five cases involve homicides in the Susquehanna Valley. Calvin Purdy Jr. is charged with murder and arson in a case in Derry Township. James Sturbinski is charged in a double murder in Lancaster County. After reviewing those cases and others, changes in the parole system are in the works. What do law enforcement or victims' rights advocates think about lowering probation sentences or giving people who are

convicted of crimes less supervision? Well, it really depends on which ones you speak with. So Vincent Chiraldi is really a leader in this field. He's at Columbia Justice Lab right now, and he used to run New York City's probation department. And he's pulled together a group of 60 other people who have expertise in probation, people working in this field that are comparing people that are on probation supervision versus not, and showing that, you know, the people who are not on probation supervision have better outcomes. And so with that kind of evidence, they're advocating for scaling back probation levels. Are there any jurisdictions out there, cities or states, that are just rethinking probation because they see the problems with it?

Yeah. So across the last two decades, actually, New York City has cut its probation population by two-thirds. I mean, this is really significant. This is the kind of, in the ballpark of the kinds of figures we should be talking about around the country in terms of the scale of reforms. How did they do that? How they did that was they put fewer people on probation. They cut the terms of probation supervision. They had people report to kiosks instead of to individual officers to be checking in to show that they were regularly, reliably able to be accessible. So someone who's on probation would go to a kiosk and they would check in like with a serial number or like a card or something? Yeah, exactly. And so the idea is

with probation is that, you know, we want to know where you are. We want to know that you're on top of things enough to with some, check in and report in. So that's what the kiosk enables. New York City has actually, during this period of time that it's downsized probation, it also reduced its reliance on prison and jail significantly. What is the likelihood that legally or politically that some of these alternatives will gain broad public support? I'm going to go with it's going to have to be certain because, you know, five years ago, I would think about these issues and think, wow, I just can't believe how slowly we're moving in the direction that we need to be going in. Now, I feel more optimistic that there's still unacceptably high

levels of crime in certain communities and urban areas, but overall nationwide, we're much safer than we were in the 1990s. And this is really the time right now to make the most of it and to realize that we're at an ideal time to scale back excessive incarceration since crime rates have fallen by about 50 percent in the last couple decades. The number of people in prison has declined by about 7 percent. The number of people on probation has declined by about 11 percent. So these are really modest changes that have happened to these systems. And what we should expect to see is that crime rates and incarceration and probation levels should be going up and down much more in unison with each other rather than being so disjointed. And when

you look at other countries and you realize that crime rates have been going down around the world and we're the only ones that have created this mass incarceration, mass probation problem, I think that's the biggest evidence and strongest evidence that we've gone astray. Nazgul Ghanoush is a senior research analyst at the Sentencing Project, which studies and advocates for criminal justice reform. I'm Gene Demby, sitting in for Sean Ramos from While He's On Vacation. He's back tomorrow. This is Today Explained. Thanks to KiwiCo for supporting the show today.

They make learning about science, technology, engineering, art, and math fun. And they're currently offering today Explained listeners the chance to try them out for free over at kiwico.com slash explained. That's where you can redeem the offer and learn more about their projects for kids of all ages.