Chairman Kesto sits on the decision to bring Good Time HB5666 to the house for a vote

After collecting thousands of signatures on the Initiative Petition to initiate good time, talking to office staff and reaching out to each member of Michigan’s Law and Justice committee it’s my clear understanding that the bill is currently being held up in the Law & Justice committee by Chairman Klint Kesto. He seems to lack of initiative towards pushing the bill forward that hundreds of residents have been calling and emailing in support which is highly troubling. As representatives of the public these legislative positions in the house and senate are in place in order to funnel in the requests of the people. However, while the people’s requests have been received on a large scale no progress has yet been made.

It seems to me that rather than the representative body functioning as a voice of the people it’s become an elite class of wealthy elite members of society making $71,685 per year, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations legislators receive, this salary is much higher than the states average of $40,000 per year and unlike many other high paying jobs we pay this cost for their salaries out of pocket.

Kesto is representative over district 39 which includes portions of Oakland county as mapped below:

While I encourage everyone to contact chairman Kesto at this time to voice their support for the Good Time Bill, if you are a resident in district 39 we especially need for you to contact representative Kesto inquiring about the bill’s date for a hearing. While as the chairman of the Law and Justice Committee he’s responsible to all Michigan residents, he is most responsible to his constituents, residents within his district. I’ve contacted all of the members of the Law and Justice committee and although I’ve heard back from the offices of Rep. Martin Howrylak, who sponsored the bill, Rep. Lucindo and Guerra who’ve all referred me to speaking to Kesto, I still have yet to hear from his office. Lucindo was the most helpful, informing me that Kesto has no time limit on bringing the bill to the house while the bill’s progress rests entirely in his hands and his only incentative is the support of the people which has clearly been demonstrated so I continue to wonder, what’s the hold up?

Kesto was placed in the chairman position at the beginning of this year. His experience as a prosecuting attorney plays a large role in his treatment of new legislation. During his advocacy for criminal justice bills related to the sentencing of juvenile offenders Kesto states, “This package focuses on true rehabilitation for those who have the best chance: young offenders…we’re creating a better framework for handling those who can still be productive, law-abiding members of society.” This is a statement that I agree with on a broader scale then just juveniles. Adult offenders can so be rehabilitated which can be shown in any inmates behavior and desire to learn, factors that our state fails to recognize for our incarcerated communities. It is important that we reiterate this to Rep. Kesto and for those who are able Rep. Kesto’s office hours are as follows on every third Friday of the month:

9 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at Biggby located at 1001 Welch Rd. in Commerce Charter Township.
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Biggby located at 1001 Welch Rd. in Commerce Charter Township.

The next ‘Espresso with Kesto’ meeting opportunity will be in one week on May 18th. For those interested in meeting Kesto to ask in person about the progress of Good Time and inquire about his plan for scheduling a hearing please fill out the contact form below identifying whether the 9am or 1pm time work best for you. We can arrange two groups that meet during both times. We must follow the momentum of the current change in good time laws as we push for criminal justice reform in Michigan.

Up until recently Michigan was one of only 5 states to automatically charge 17 year old offenders as adults. It’s only been a month since U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith ruled that good time must be applied to re-sentenced youthful offenders. A juvenile-lifer is an offender under the age of 18 sentenced to life without parole or a term of years, it must be a minimum of 25 to 40 years and maximum of 60 years.There are 363 juvenile lifers incarcerated in Michigan, sentenced to die in prison for crimes that were committed as juveniles. MDOC was given two weeks to recalculate these offenders sentences. Michigan has the highest number of juvenile lifers in the world.

While this law targets those who’ve been sentenced to life, there are hundreds of more offenders who were sentenced to harsh sentences as juveniles who aren’t being re-sentenced. We must take these cases into consideration as well when reforming the effects of Michigan’s harsh juvenile sentencing. This legislation was passed as a result of a Supreme Court case Miller v. Alabama that decided 4 years ago that sentencing juveniles as adults was unconstitutional. This unconstitutional practice also applies to all those who’ve harshly as juveniles. Like juvenile lifers, juveniles who are sentenced to decades beyond bars are also as Judge Goldsmith describes, “Because of their lesser culpability and greater capacity to change, they must be sentenced under a process that gives them an individualized opportunity to present mitigating circumstances to avert such a harsh sentence.”

Chairmen Kesto has the opportunity to make some incredible strides in some desperately needed restructuring of Michigan’s criminal justice system with the bills that are currently being reviewed within his committee. He is solely responsible at this point in the legislation process for moving them forward into the house for a vote. Judging by his twitter feed it seems as tough he’s interested in primal justice reform but with the power to bring change directly in to Congress its going to take much more than retweets to prove it. Good Time may not be his highest priority right now but we need to demonstrate to him that it is ours straight from Rep. Legrand’s office staff and here are some steps you can take in pushing Good Time legislation so that it can get a hearing:

1. Call the Law and Justice Committee chair, Chairman Kesto’s main phone line at the capitol is (517) 373-1799
2. Once the bill receives a hearing, we must begin to call the representatives on the committee, who’re listed here: http://house.michigan.gov/mhrpublic/CommitteeInfo.aspx?comkey=430
3. Once the bill passes through the committee it will move on to the full House for consideration, at which time all of the representatives who serve in the House of Representatives should be contacted. People can find and contact their local rep here: http://house.michigan.gov/mhrpublic/frmFindaRep.aspx