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March 30, 2006
MA: Countywide Prayer Vigil in Response to 2 year sentence for youth with 2 marijuana cigarettes
Countywide Interfaith Prayer Vigil in Response to the Sentencing of
Mitchell Lawrence
The Superior Courthouse Pittsfield MA
Sunday April 2nd 7:00 p.m.
A group of clergy from throughout Berkshire County has organized to
hold a prayer vigil at the courthouse in Pittsfield this Sunday April
2nd, at 7:00.
Many people in our community were moved with a sense of collective
sadness at the recent sentencing of Mitchell Lawrence to a mandatory
two years in prison for selling a small amount of marijuana. Like many others, the Reverend Steven Bridges of the First Congregational Church in Stockbridge and John Whalan of Stockbridge were puzzled by the severity of the punishment and began to discuss faith perspectives on what constitutes justice in such cases. “True justice is only possible in a larger context which includes not only the power of enforcement but the exercise of wisdom and mercy in the application of such power,” concluded Rev. Bridges.
“The response to the school zone charges for those arrested in the
Taconic Parking lot has been largely a political one.” Whalan said “The community is polarized, with a group of concerned citizens on one side calling for discretion and more appropriate sentencing and the District Attorney on the other standing by his conviction that he must invoke the law in all of these cases.
The aim of this interfaith prayer vigil is to provide an opportunity to transcend the purely political and allow people come together with an affirmative aim.
Members of the Clergy from nearly every city and town in the county
will lead the vigil with prayers and words of support for Mitchell
Lawrence, his family and the families of others involved in cases like this. And also, for those involved in the community, in law enforcement and in the judicial system, that in these cases and cases like these, justice will be administered with wisdom and mercy.
Posted by lois at March 30, 2006 11:27 PM