Brothers who 'struck out' may get another chance

In the mid-1990s, brothers Paul Rivers and David Conyers were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Their crimes? Small-time robberies of convenience stores and an espresso stand, armed with nothing but their fingers, concealed in their pockets, that they pretended to be guns. Rivers was the first person to get life under the state of Washington’s “three strikes” law. Conyers was the youngest. These laws are designed to put career criminals out of business, but they come at a great cost to society and communities of color. A review released this May by the University of Washington Law, Societies & Justice Program found that roughly one in 10 Washington state inmates is serving life without parole under the three-strikes law, each at a cost of roughly $2.5 million to taxpayers. While African Americans make up just 4 percent of the state’s population, 28 percent of those serving life in prison here are black. Last week, the state’s Clemency and Pardons Board voted unanimously in favor of clemency for Paul Rivers and David Conyers. On its editorial page today, the Seattle Times calls on Gov. Inslee to pardon them, and on the legislature to “revisit a law that sends black men to the slow death of a life sentence for petty robberies.”