Too bad Johnny Cash never got to meet Daniel R. Luke. The Man in Black could have taught Danny boy the meaning of hard time.
On Dec. 5, 2010, Luke broke into his ex-wife’s Northeast Portland home and tried to strangle her while his two young sons were there.
The police arrived and arrested him.
Luke will never admit it, but he caught a lucky break: The police stopped him before he could have killed her and ended up with a murder charge.
Eventually, Luke caught several other breaks and was offered a negotiated plea: Guilty to burglary with domestic violence, guilty to strangulation and a “no contest” plea to coercion.
Luke had previous criminal convictions, including violent misconduct at Powell’s bookstore for which he was sentenced to anger awareness class. After attacking his ex-wife, Luke couldn’t get off with simply taking a refresher course in anger management. Under Oregon’s voter-approved Measure 11, he received a 30-month prison sentence.
Just how rough was life for Daniel R. Luke in Oregon’s prison system?
Harsh.
“It happens frequently … pears a long way from ripeness are served for several meals,” he wrote to Collette Peters, now chief of the state’s Department of Corrections.
Luke attributed the green, unripened pears to “incompetence or outright corruption.”
More inhumanity: “CD players will no longer be accepted for repair,” Luke complained in a letter posted on his blog, bunk34.wordpress.com (now inactive).
As a felon, Luke was not one to be pushed around:
“Lastly, Ms. Peters, please know that a copy of this letter has been sent to the Mercury, the Willamette Week, The Oregonian, The ACLU and my own personal attorney.”
Daniel Russell Luke is an Oregon classic.
In this state, we breed felons with a sense of entitlement. They know what excuses to invoke: Poverty, lousy schools, racism, classism, sexism, discrimination ad infinitum (new categories are constantly being discovered; gender confusion seems popular right now).
It’s not surprising Luke was outraged to find himself in prison. Even with the state’s supposedly tough Measure 11 requiring minimum-mandatory sentences for violent felonies, most criminals expect multiple second chances.
But now, back in the free world, it really had to hurt when Luke picked up the alternative newspaper Willamette Week earlier this month and saw the cover story, “Spare the Jail, Spoil the Child?”
It turns out that juvenile incarceration may be the best place for some juvenile offenders – especially those whose families either can’t help them or won’t help them (or, worse, drag them down).
This is not the kind of news that Oregon’s criminal class is used to hearing. They are used to being comforted with academic theories on why crime happens. They are accustomed to lining up for programs and services that are supposed to help them while they continue to enjoy personal freedom.
In Luke’s case, he responded with outrage.
“I’m going to dismantle this piece limb by limb. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather Oregon not be on the fast track to becoming the Mississippi of the West more than it already is,” he wrote on Willamette Week’s website.
It would never occur to Luke that he’s one of the reasons that Oregon could come to resemble a left-wing version of a Deep South state.
“Crime in just about all categories is at record lows. The only epidemic is the epidemic of ignorance and fear,” Luke wrote on Willamette Week’s website.
It would never occur to Luke that Measure 11 (and similar laws approved by voters in other states) is one of the reasons that many crime rates are lower. Not low – but lower.
We have settled into a new normal where armed robberies and assaults may merit nothing more than a few graphs in news coverage. In some cases, not even a few graphs.
Just as career felons understand that an occasional jail or prison sentence is the price of doing business, ordinary citizens have come to accept a certain amount of crime. We adjust. Walk through any middle-class neighborhood in Portland, and count the Brinks or ADT security signs poking out of people’s lawns. The message to burglars: Go some place else.
For the most part, criminals still prey on those least able to defend themselves – the lower socio-economic classes and minorities. This is why NPR will produce an “in-depth” report on alleged debtor’s prisons targeting poor criminal defendants without bothering to mention the economic class of the victims involved. That would skew the story.
So Daniel R. Luke can take heart. He still has friends in the media.
What could be disheartening is if he analyzes the question posed by Willamette Week – “Spare the Jail, Spoil the Child?” – in the context of his own life.
Luke is now 44 years old. Based on the limited Multnomah County court records available, he was 37 years old when he was ordered to take the Level 2, Anger Awareness class for his misconduct at Powell’s bookstore. He was 41 when he broke into his ex-wife’s home and tried to strangle her. How did he spend his adolescence and his 20’s?
It seems unlikely that he was leading an upstanding, law-abiding life until he hit 37. How many second chances did he receive along the way?
According to court records, when Luke appeared before Judge Cheryl Albrecht on the misconduct charge, he acted out when she ordered him to stay 50 feet away from Powell’s bookstore and to avoid contacting witnesses. He looked at her and dragged his finger across his throat.
She warned him if he did it again he would be taken into custody. His juvenile behavior seems out of place in an adult court, unless he hadn’t been required to grow up.
Now here he is, a middle-aged man, weighing in on the young life of Donald Anthony Beckwith.
As detailed by reporter Nigel Jaquiss in Willamette Week, Beckwith stole his first car at 15. Before he was 17, he had moved on to muggings, meth and theft.
Beckwith was repeatedly given probation. His luck ran out when he and a buddy broke into a marijuana grow house and beat one of the occupants. Another resident shot him.
Beckwith, now a convicted burglar, finally landed a sentence. At MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility he has been taking college classes and learning welding, carpentry and barber skills.
This is not good news to Luke. In his view, incarcerating violent juveniles is something that only Third World countries do. But then, he doesn’t think he deserved prison after trying to strangle his ex-wife.
Yet Johnny Cash, who showed much compassion to convicted felons, could also stand before inmates in live recordings at San Quentin and Folsom Prison and sing, “Well, I know I had it coming. I know I can’t be free.”
For all the negative comments posted against Jaquiss’s story on “Spare the Jail, Spoil the Child?” none of them complain about the resident of the drug house who shot Beckwith. Yes, even criminals accept that some behaviors need to be punished.
At this point, Beckwith’s life looks more promising than Daniel Luke’s. It could be that the discipline and attention Beckwith has received at MacLaren is what Luke needed as a young man and didn’t receive.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
Pamela, it seems as if you’re writing to an imaginary angry mob that never seems to show up to actually read what you have to say. They’re all too busy watching Fox News, I guess. Your writing would be much better, indeed much more credible if you didn’t distort, mislead, and sensationalize. So, here’s how this is going to go: you’ve fired your first salvo, replete with error as it is. I’m going to set the record straight with fact, and then you’re going to ignore my answer and begin anew with some other fresh attack. Here’s the thing, Pamela. So far, that has been your pattern. So here we go…
Legally speaking, the most damning thing that happened on the day in question was the burglary. That, and that alone is why I went to prison. You make it seem like I brutally beat my ex-wife. If that were so, one would expect to see significant injuries, but there weren’t any, and no one has ever once claimed otherwise, including my ex. I was charged with Assault III which is classified as the lowest level of assault on the books, and about as distant from attempted murder as one can get. You irresponsibly make it seem as if I had been in the middle of murdering my ex, and would have had the cops not arrived. Simply not true (but sure is sensational!) The charges actually reflect what happened, more or less, and I’ve never said otherwise. I wasn’t charged as a Measure 11 crime because it didn’t fit Measure 11s criteria, not because Amy Holmes-Hehn found it within the goodness of her heart to give me a “lucky break”.
Secondly, the incident at Powell’s was not violent misconduct. You know full well that there is no such charge. It was Disorderly Conduct. Someone at Powell’s put their hands on ME, I told him to remove his hands. At this point plain-closed Powell’s security moved in and asked me to leave. I didn’t know who they were at first, but when it became clear, I complied and PEACEFULLY left the store while said Powell’s security guards followed me down several flights of stairs threatening to kick my ass and mace me. When I left the building, they still continued to follow me on public property, continuing to make the same threats until I turned around and told them to go ahead with their threats. They went back in the store, called the police. Not knowing how corrupt authority is in this town/state, I waited for the police. Why run? I did nothing wrong. As they were on their way, Huff, of Powell’s security informed the cops that he thought I had a gun. Predictably, I was arrested. I opted for a trial, and because I still trusted the justice system at this point, I opted to let a judge rather than a jury preside. The trial lasted for two days. I put Huff on the witness stand, and caught him in one lie after the next. It was clear throughout the duration of the trial that Ms. Cheryl Albrecht wasn’t going to be persuaded by facts, she wasn’t going to allow evidence, and it was clear she favored the prosecution. She made no attempt to hide this. Yes, I did drag my finger across my throat to indicate that I was a dead man in the courtroom. I could see at this point how things work in an Oregon courtroom, and it was a very disturbing experience.
You also write, “But then, he doesn’t think he deserved prison after trying to strangle his ex-wife..” Really? Can you quote something I wrote somewhere to back up this claim???? No, you can’t, because I’ve never said it. I’ve NEVER said that I didn’t do the things I was accused of doing, Powell’s Books notwithstanding, and I’ve never said that I didn’t deserve to go to prison. When it has come to my own circumstance, I’ve never had an issue with accepting the sentence handed down. What I do take issue with is what prison actually is. I can speak with more authority on this subject than you can, by the way.
Here’s something else you write: “Daniel Russell Luke is an Oregon classic.
“In this state, we breed felons with a sense of entitlement. They know what excuses to invoke: Poverty, lousy schools, racism, classism, sexism, discrimination ad infinitum (new categories are constantly being discovered; gender confusion seems popular right now).”
Well, that sure is interesting too..since I’ve never ONCE invoked such an “excuse”, have I Pamela? Now tell the truth. OF course, you clerverly fall just short of making a direct accusation that I have made such an excuse, but the inference is plain and characteristic of your sloppy technique as a writer.
Now, on to the pears…The reason I made a big issue of that is because I was disgusted by the massive amount of waste I saw, and I did what I could do to draw attention to it. Between 2010 and 2012, there were about 14,000 prisoners under ODOC custody. That means that for just one meal, 14,000 pears were served. That’s a lot of pears, and if they all ended up in the trash, which they did, (because they could not be eaten), that’s a lot of waste. I would have preferred not to have been served pears, in fact because for just this one food item millions of dollars were being wasted. The inedible pears were served a lot, by the way. Three or four times a week sometimes. If I had a sene of entitlement as you indicate, I would have complained about all the shitty food that was served that wasn’t fit for human consumption. But throwing away perfectly good produce did bother me because it was a real disrespect to the environment, the farmers who grew those pears and those who picked them, and indeed, those who paid for them.
But the inner workings of a prison rarely see the light of day. The corruption of ODOC and Colette Peters did come to light briefly when Rob Killgore was just awarded about $500,000 for wrongful dismissal after he was fired for blowing the whistle on various ODOC potentates (including Peters and Morrow) because they were using funds illicitly. But all of this has been flushed from the news cycle and not a single one of these criminals has been so much as reprimanded to my knowledge.
As prisoners, we were just there to be exploited for as much cash and lucre as Oregon officials could lay there hands on. Most of the American public is finally beginning to wake up to the fact that the profit motive has a lot to do with why we have so many in prison. The common misconception is that this only applies to prisons and jails which are explicitly for profit when the truth is it can apply to non-corporate prisons like the ones we have in Oregon as well. So, when ODOC introduced MP3 players for wildly inflated prices and signed a contract with a profiteering firm that provided the hardware for downloading songs, ODOC banned the repair of CD players. IT may seem like a petty thing, but it spoke loudly about how much we were being relied upon to line someone else’s pocket.
Of course I realize that there is a prevalent mentality out there which isn’t bothered by any form abuse in prison, no matter how brutal or exploitative. But cheering for the brutal treatment of prisoners can have unintended consequences because it erodes and instead of builds respect for authority. Many of the formerly incarcerated hold the view if crimes are committed against them without anyone caring, it makes it that much easier to justify their own reoffenses.
You write, “It seems unlikely that he was leading an upstanding, law-abiding life until he hit 37. How many second chances did he receive along the way?” You shouldn’t presume to know who I am never having met me and what course my life has followed. Again, such unwarranted speculation, blatantly inimical in spirit as they are, show your weakness as a writer. If you actually knew anything about my life, I doubt you would come to the conclusion that I’ve had a multitude of second chances.
All of your insinuations that I had a criminal lifestyle during earlier epochs of my life are quite wrong.
What you don’t know is that I abhor true victim crimes, and I believe that police and even some form of jail or prison has a place in society. It does not make me happy to learn that you were a crime victim, or anyone else for that matter. The material loss you suffered is clearly infinitesimally small compared to the charity of spirit it seems as if you also lost. That is truly tragic.
It is also clear that I am not a human in your eyes because you do your best to malign and libel to your hearts content without any regard to nuance or truth. Rather, I am meant to serve as a living embodiment of all that you hate, and against which you are free to flog and fulminate.
I too used to be a very angry person. As far as being a criminal is concerned, what I will tell you is that all of our anger, all of our hate, and all of our intolerance constitutes our first crime, and it’s a crime we commit against ourselves. IT deprives us our peace and our full capacity to experience the joy and beauty in life. If we are not careful, not only will other people likely become our victims whether in a legal sense or not, we will as well. If we are not careful, it will grow like a cancer and kill us.
So you’re not angry?
You might go over to Willamette Week and reread some of your many comments.
Yes, Daniel, you do have a sense of entitlement. It’s on display here if you honestly believe that being served green pears and the failure to repair inmates’ CD players constitute “brutal treatment of prisoners.”
No, crime is when you start hurting OTHER people, taking THEIR stuff without permission.
Watch Chris Rock’s dated but still true and hilarious video “How to Avoid an Ass-Whupping by the Police: OBEY THE LAW.”
And you say you USED to be angry?
I’d hate to meet you on a dark street.
No, Pamela, I’m not an angry person though, in honesty, this would have been a far more accurate description in the past. It was a horrible affliction that caused a great deal of harm to myself and others as well, obviously. The reason I’m not that way is because I started taking an SSRI, and it’s made a huge difference. I truly wish anger management had worked, and maybe it does for some people, but I haven’t heard of any great success stories. It has made me wonder how much more effective we might be in our approach if, instead of treating people like unalterable moral failures, we treated them as if something were broken that needed to be fixed. It might not work in all cases, sure, but it might be an improvement.
You seemed to be incensed that someone who has broken the law and even committed an offense against another person finds the voice to speak up. I do so to reclaim my dignity. I am not a thug. I do not believe in hurting other people. I do not believe in a criminal lifestyle, and I was vocal about that even while I was in prison. And as vocal as I am about my disdain for the expansion of prison, I’d be just as vocal in telling people to obey the law. So, I agree with what Pat wrote. We should all obey the law. I’ve never said or suggested otherwise.
While there, I encouraged people as much as I could to live up to their potential. I would tell them that they didn’t need to be criminals, and that they didn’t need to engage in crime, that it was a losing proposition. I doubt that my words were heeded in many cases because so many people in prison internals the idea that they’re criminals. Society expects this behavior, so far from disappointing anyone when they return to crime, they reaffirm society’s position. But I always bear in mind something that was said by Johann Wolfgang Goethe some centuries ago, and I believe it: “If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
As for the pears (again), I think you’re missing the point (or maybe you didn’t carefully read what I’d written?). I was angered by the waste. That it was somehow acceptable to just waste that much money. Frankly, it was immoral. I don’t accept that sort of thing. I don’t accept that just because I’m in prison, I shouldn’t speak up about such things. As I mentioned, I refuse to hang my head low and live in shame as a malefactor because that’s not what I am.
During this exchange, you’ve called me a liar, a thug, a sociopath, and many other things besides (I think it was you anyway..but I might be wrong about a few of these episodes of name calling). In your post here, you attribute to me beliefs that I’ve given you no cause to think I believe, and are in fact at odds with how I believe. For all of this, and much else beside, you seem to me like an angry person. Certainly a self-righteous person.
All I ever wanted to do was have a discussion about the facts of the issue at hand, but I knew that I deferred, you would accuse me of avoidance, so I had no choice to indulge you. You can talk about me all you want, and I will tell you when you’re actually accurate, but also tell you when you’re not (when it comes to my own life). But I’d rather discuss the issues of imprisonment. Let’s stick to the facts. Make your arguments with resorting to attacking me personally, and I can assure you I’ll do the same.
Thank you by the way for posting my comment and at least giving me a chance to respond to what you’d written. You still haven’t acknowledged the points I brought up though.
I’m not going to read Mr. Luke’s diatribes. I know his excuses better than he does. He doesn’t have to be honest about his criminal history. Even with fingerprints, prosecutors and law enforcement have trouble tracing a conviction record. Transparency is difficult in some cases. The laws favor deception and make it easy for some guys to wipe the slate clean even if they aren’t clean.
You wrote an essay a while back quoting someone at DOJ who said the crime drop has benefited the poor. They make up the majority of crime victims. That’s why Kitz and his team are going after Measure 11. They want more money for their own pet projects. Kitz and his team don’t worry about crime. Mr. Luke isn’t going to bother them.
J.D. — Thanks for your comment.
The person who said that was Craig Prins, an advisor to Gov. John Kitzhaber’s Commission on Public Safety (the first iteration). It was from the commission’s first public hearing in 2011:
“The poor and destitute … have received the benefit of this drop in crime,” Prins said.
What I had forgotten was the generally light-hearted tone of that meeting. A majority of the commissioners seem to think the public’s fear of crime was all in their heads:
http://www.heldtoanswer.com/2011/10/deep-in-the-heart-of-oregon/
Thanks again.
I wish Donald Beckwith the best of luck. Keep at it. Your chance of succeeding will increase if you don’t listen to angry men like Daniel Luke.
I find it hard to believe that the only comments left regarding this back and forth banter have been to side with this reporter.
Mr. Luke brings forth some truths that perhaps Pamela Fitzsimmons does not agree with surely as they tinge her slant of how it is she is reporting.
You cannot report only parts of a story that are favorable in light and/or biased. I am surprised in that as a professional, she would have conducted herself as such and not enter as it seemed into a kindergarten brawl on the playing field of words spat at the other.
Valid points can only be acceptable to a reader if truthfulless of your reporting are met to which the standard in your profession certainly should be held in high regards.
I’d have to say Ms. Fitzsimmons, seemingly you lost this debate as your standards fell short of our expectance in reading the truth in a story reported sans the adlibs.
Nothing personal. Just a reader who can’t quite agree with you on this one.
As evident, this story goes back a few years and the power of WORD never changes’ Perhaps your reporting has though for the betterment of your readers.
I did not “lose” this debate. There are no winners or losers in a debate that will never end.
There will always be folks who think prisons should be abolished. There will also be folks who think prisons are needed to deal with human beings who hurt other people. Even some men who have been wrongly incarcerated understand why law enforcement and prisons are needed.
Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person ever exonerated from death row by post-conviction DNA testing, told the authors of “Anatomy of Innocence” that he didn’t hate cops:
“(W)ithout them we’d pretty soon be living in a postapocalyptic vision of hell.”