Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform – New Hampshire

At 18 years old I was playing with a handgun and I accident shot and killed my friend. I lost my friend and as far as I was concerned my life was over.

Servant Song

Brother, let me be your servant. Let me be as Christ to you.

Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

It was the first Sunday in September, 1999, and I needed a confessor. But I was an Evangelical. I attended an Evangelical church. We did not believe in auricular confession and absolution. True believers confessed their sins to God in secret and were forgiven in secret.

I knocked on the steel door to Ron’s office, then fidgeted in the windowless concrete hall outside. Behind me, sounds of the one o’clock inmate movement echoed through Hancock Building: electric locks snapped open, prisoners’ state issue boots clomped on metal stairs, a guard yelled something through shatter-proof glass. I waited alone, uneasy in this empty stub of a hallway, unsure how long I should stand here.

I was testifying in front of the House Criminal Judiciary Committee, speaking in favor of a minor change in New Hampshire’s sex offender registry. I always begin statehouse testimony with the disclaimer that I am a convicted sex offender.