Thomas Breen photo
Anderson with judge’s order: “What a Good Friday!”
Demetrius Anderson is fully, finally, a free man.
The 43-year-old Westville resident no longer faces the threat of prison or parole, thanks to a federal judge’s order recognizing that a man should not be punished for a decade-old miscommunication between the state and federal judicial systems.
Anderson learned that good news on Friday, the day after Philadelphia federal district Judge Paul Diamond signed an order formally releasing him from a three-year sentence of supervised release related to a crime he had pleaded guilty to over 13 years ago.
A devout Christian and member of the Joy Temple Church on Howard Avenue, Anderson marveled at the timing of his exoneration coming at the start of Easter weekend.
“I feel blessed beyond words,” Anderson said now that he no longer faces the threat of being wrenched from the stable, crime-free life he has built for himself in New Haven over the past 13 years and sent to federal prison or put on federal parole in Philadelphia.
“My faith was tested, and my faith is restored. What a Good Friday.”
Thursday’s order marks the end of a tortuous limbo Anderson had found himself in ever since U.S. marshals came knocking on his door last month to inform him that he would be going to federal prison for 16 months.
He had already served three years in Connecticut state prison and had spent the past 13 years rebuilding his life in New Haven with two jobs, a two-bedroom condo in Westville, a church family in the Hill, and no new arrests. The federal court nevertheless pursued locking him up again because of an apparent miscommunication between the Connecticut state and Pennsylvania federal judicial systems back in 2006 that led to marshals failing to retrieve him to move to federal prison after his stint in state custody.
Anderson and Hamden attorney Michael Dolan (center left and center right) on CNN.
After the Independent first broke the story of Anderson’s re-arrest at the end of March, Anderson and his local attorney Michael Dolan garnered local, national, and international press, even driving down to New York City for an interview with Don Lemon on CNN.
As Anderson’s story was told and re-told again and again, the federal Bureau of Prisons almost immediately recalculated his recommended federal prison sentence down to zero, crediting him for time served as a free man over the past 13 years.
And on April 2, the Philadelphia U.S. attorney and federal defender even issued a joint motion to Judge Diamond in which they both requested that the judge clear Anderson of his 2005 sentence of three years on supervised release, and to vacate the judge’s outstanding bench warrant for his arrest.
For over two weeks, the judge refused to sign the joint motion. Up until Friday morning, Anderson and Dolan still thought they would be going to court in Philadelphia on May 1 for a hearing before Diamond himself.
Dolan in his Hamden office.
But on Thursday, Diamond issued his order. The six-page document grants all of the terms of the April 2 joint motion.
It credits Anderson with time at liberty for his unserved three-year supervision term, and recognizes that term as satisfied. It exonerates him from the unsecured $50,000 bond Anderson had signed on March 20 in district court in Connecticut in order to get out of prison prior to his hearing. It establishes a payment plan for restitution Anderson has agreed to pay related to the original 2005 charges. It vacates Diamond’s latest bench warrant for Anderson’s arrest. And it cancels Anderson’s May 1 court hearing in Philadelphia.
“The Parties agree that Connecticut authorities released Defendant mistakenly,” Daimond writes. “There is no evidence that Defendant evaded federal authorities since he has been at liberty. It also appears that federal authorities were negligent in allowing Defendant to remain at liberty in the circumstances presented. … Finally, Defendant has not been arrested or convicted of any criminal offenses while at liberty.”
“Thank goodness there were some more compassionate and thoughtful judges who gave Demetrius the benefit of the doubt and let him remain at liberty as we sorted the issue out,” Dolan said as he reflected on the hard-fought victory in the face of a federal judicial system that had initially been set on locking Anderson up.
“The system assumes the worst,” he said, “and you have to fight your way out of the negative assumptions.”
Amidst his own joy and relief of having this episode in his life firmly behind him, Anderson said that he will not easily shake the trauma of having been threatened with prison, and then parole, so many years after he had fully rehabilitated himself.
“This is about injustice and holding people accountable,” he said, calling on the federal court system to issue him a formal apology and to exonerate any other defendants with decade-old unenforced sentences whom the court might be pursuing at this time.
Now that he is fully free, he said he plans to commit himself to fighting for criminal justice reform so that no one else will have to go through what he went through this past month. “At first, I was saying, ‘Why me?’” he said. “Now, I can say, ‘Why not me?’”
And as for this weekend, he knows exactly how he will be celebrating Easter Sunday. With his church family, on Howard Avenue, praising God and the community that stood and stands behind him.
“I thank God,” he said as he looked at a print-out of the judge’s order. “I can’t thank him enough.”