Restorative Justice: How Law Schools Can Help Heal Their Communities
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Restorative Justice: How Law Schools Can Help Heal Their C ommunities
Rachel King 0 1
0 Howard University School of Law
1 Rachel King, Restorative Justice: How Law Schools Can Help Heal Th eir Communities , 34 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1285 (2007). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol34/iss4/5
Part of the Criminal Law Commons Recommended Citation
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Article 5
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Rachel King*
I. INTRODUCTION—THE LIMITATIONS OF THE
CRIMINAL JUSTICE PARADIGM
A. Azim Khamisa’s Story1
On Saturday night, January 21, 1995, nineteen-year-old Tariq
Khamisa was delivering pizzas at DeMille’s Italian Restaurant in
San Diego, California. His pizza-delivery job helped pay some of
his college expenses at San Diego State University.
He was getting ready to leave for the evening when his boss
asked him to make one last delivery. Reluctantly, Tariq agreed.
Before doing so, he stopped by his girlfriend’s house to bring her a
soda.2
Tariq drove to the address, a large housing project on Louisiana
Street in San Diego’s working-class North Park neighborhood. He
searched in vain for Unit D. After knocking on several doors, he
realized there was no Unit D—the order had been a hoax. As he
walked back to his Volkswagen, a boy pointed a gun at him and
said, “Pizza man, give me those pizzas.” Tariq ignored him and
kept walking back to his car. He tossed the pizzas inside and
started to drive away. The boy fired. The nine-millimeter slug
shattered the car window, ripping through Tariq’s arms and chest,
killing him immediately.3
The police easily located the assailant, Tony Hicks, who was
already in custody for stealing his grandfather’s gun. Tariq’s father,
Azim, was devastated by his son’s senseless murder. The case
* At the time of writing this Essay, Rachel King taught legal research and
writing at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. Before Howard, she
served in the Washington National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union
lobbying on criminal justice issues and working in the Capital Punishment Project. She
has written two books and numerous articles and reports about criminal justice and
death penalty issues. In April 2007, she began serving as a lawyer for the U.S. House
of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary under Congressman John Conyers.
1. All references to Azim’s story come from the author’s book, RACHEL KING,
DON’T KILL IN OUR NAMES: FAMILIES OF MURDER VICTIMS SPEAK OUT AGAINST
THE DEATH PENALTY 250 (2003).
2. Id.
3. Id.
[Vol. XXXIV
quickly became high-profile and political because Tony was the
first fourteen-year-old to be prosecuted as an adult under
California’s new, tougher laws enabling juveniles to be prosecuted in the
adult criminal justice system.4 The case engendered much
debate—some supported the law while others opposed it.5 Azim did
not take part in the debate, which to him seemed irrelevant. No
matter what happened to Tony, it would not bring his son back.
My thoughts and emotions began to return the day after we
buried Tariq. One of the first emotions I felt was anger. However,
it was not directed at Tariq’s assailants. The entire society was
the object of my rage. I wondered how it was that in our great
country children too young to have a driver’s license are not too
young to carry a gun. Why do we spend billions on wars on
foreign soil or conquering space, when every day, in our own
backyard, our defenseless children are wiped out in a frenzy of
bizarre violence? Why couldn’t our intelligent nation, the
world’s only superpower, get its priorities right? How many
more children would have to be sacrificed? When did we start
accepting these killings? And why did we allow them to
continue?6
Tony was sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison, but the
harsh punishment did nothing to ease Azim’s pain:
Sentencing Tony to prison did not make me feel whole. It did
nothing to bring Tariq back. We need a justice system that is
more holistic. We have to look at where violence comes from.
Parents are not only responsible. All of society is responsible.
I was starting to think more about the concept of restorative
justice, especially for juveniles. Our system is based on
retributive justice, which punishes the offender and ends there.
Restorative justice seeks to make both parties whole. We need to
be realistic that if we do not change offenders, we as a society
will continue to suffer.7
With the help of the district attorney, Azim contacted Tony’s
grandfather and guardian, Plex Ferguson, a very unusual thing to
do. Through Plex, he began corresponding with Tony in prison,
and eventually chose to meet Tony in person. Azim be (...truncated)