Restorative justice: It's lacking in today's system

by Dana Melius 

Beyond the raw emotions and hints of class warfare during the recent Amy Senser criminal vehicular trial, the simple words of basic restorative justice finally surfaced Monday following her 41-month sentencing in Hennepin County court.

Senser apologized.  And the parents of Anousone Phanthavong forgave her in the death of their son, the 38-year-old chef at Minneapolis True Tai restaurant.

“It also marked the first time she said she was sorry, something Phanthavong’s family said contributed to their closure as much as a prison sentence,” wrote Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Abby Simons in its July 9 edition.

Closure.  Too often in today’s criminal justice system there is too little.  Instead, victims and the court system seek punitive sentencing, then realize a prison sentence alone brings little peace and closure.  Victims deserve and should demand more.  And in some cases – many cases – justice would be better served.

It’s called restorative justice, and after more than a decade of advancement in Minnesota, we are losing ground on this front.  In this emotionally charged world since 9/11, the cry for personal responsibility, the ugly expansion of political posturing and revenge, there is little time and money for restoring justice.  Instead, we put people away and place a huge burden on criminals and taxpayers alike.  Worse, we offer too little restorative justice for victims. 

And that – restoring justice for victims – should be the court’s and, more so, society’s primary purpose.

Restorative justice done right is a powerful and effective tool.  And for the criminal justice system to better serve both victims and offenders, it must more effectively restore justice not just enforce punitive sentences.  Importantly and uniquely, each incident and its slate of involved parties vary in emotions and needs.  But today’s court system and its glut of cases have neither the time nor money to efficiently handle both.

However, getting this right is so critical for the healing process and for a more compassionate society.  Those of us objectively watching the Amy Senser trial unfold understand that could have been any of us. In a moment, lives change. Be it inattentive driving or filling gas on a freeway ramp, tragedies unfold. And criminal vehicular homicide sentencing has been getting much tougher in recent years, with the wave of cell phone texting accidents, on-going DWI citations, and we’ll see it again in the recent St. Paul Harding high school tragedy, in which a 16-year-old was run down in a park by an unlicensed driver.

But does a 41-month sentence for Senser allow closure for the victim’s family?  Or does a tearful, sincere apology best open the door for forgiveness and final closure?

Only the family of the victim truly knows and understands that.  And the difficulty in restorative justice is both understanding that and measuring its effectiveness. 

For our family, it was an easy call.  In December of 1997, son Benjamin returned to his Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop High School roots to watch a T-Bird boys basketball game. Leaving a couple minutes early, he was jumped by at least two Glencoe-Silver Lake High School students and knocked unconscious in a dark, back gymnasium  parking lot.  Investigators believe a single blow to the head knocked him out, but another 50 or more kicks to his head and body forced a difficult and anxious ambulance run to the very community hospital of the offenders – Glencoe.

I was the second person to come across Ben in the parking lot, just after a fellow GFWer raced inside to report the attack.  I watched as his face swelled and his eyes rolled back in his head.  It was as frightening a period ever in raising our six children.  And my initial feelings were of extreme anger.  Ben was a random victim.  The parking lot was nearly pitch dark, with no proper lighting.  The ambulance response seemed slow.  And as my wife Kim and I drove to Glencoe, I hoped to spot the offenders, somehow, somewhere.

We later found out that a group of young McLeod County men drove to the basketball game in search of a young Winthrop man suspected of assaulting one of their friends earlier in the week.  When he wasn’t found, they decked the first person out of the gym – Ben.  Two other GFW students were assaulted on the south side of the gym but neither sustained serious injuries.  Ben’s were.

Twenty-one young men – five adults and 16 juveniles – were later faced with felony assault or intent to riot charges. 

Ben was hurting but open and honest from  the start regarding his feelings in the matter.  Mob mentality among high school boys could escalate over the simplest of incidents, he said.  And successful felony convictions in this case could greatly hamper these young men’s educational and job paths.  When approached by the Sibley County Attorney’s Office and Court Services department about a restorative justice, “circle-sentencing” approach, Ben and our family agreed.

Although it was a lengthy, somewhat disjointed first attempt at averting the traditional criminal justice system, it was powerful for the Melius family.  All 21 alleged offenders – with parents – attended the circle.  Ben was allowed to speak and offered his forgiveness and understanding.  Several of the young men charged – as well as their parents – gave tearful apologies.  And as Ben left early prior to an agreed upon “sentence” by both victims and offenders, he shook the hands of all 21 young men.

It offered proper and powerful closure to Ben and our family.  Not surprisingly, others in the community disagreed and felt the offenders got off easy. But we knew it might have saved some of the offenders from the dark clouds of a felony conviction.  And while it did not spare our family from an unexpected criticism from many in the Winthrop community who didn’t see the justice and wanted greater punishment, we believed it was restorative justice at work.

And today, we continue to believe in it.  One of those 21 offenders eventually became close friends with my daughter, Ambryn, as they were among Gustavus Adolphus College students who traveled to India in 2001.  And I sat on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol over a year later with this wonderful young man, protesting American bombings in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.

Restorative justice is not easy work.  And it doesn’t fit sentencing guidelines, which have taken over the criminal justice system.  It’s why Amy Senser received at least the minimum of 41 months in prison for her responsibility in the death of Thai chef   Anousone Phanthavong.  Ms. Senser finally backed away from her lawyers at Monday’s sentencing and gave what was described as a “sincere apology.” 

And in the end, it just might be this apology and acceptance of responsibility that brings restorative justice and closure to the Phanthavong family.