Boy With A Knife. Jean Trounstine

Boy With A Knife

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BOY WITH A KNIFE

“Through skillful storytelling and rigorous research, Jean Trounstine shows us why young people engage in crime and violence, and how we can create rehabilitation and redemption for those caught up in the system. This book is an argument for why youth justice should move to the top of our national priorities if we want safe and equitable communities for all Americans.”

—Piper Kerman, author of the New York Times bestselling Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison

“Jean Trounstine tells Karter Reed’s story with warmth, with complexity, with nuance. She weaves in his background, trial, conviction, imprisonment in the context of larger contemporary public and scholarly debates about punishment and especially, adolescents. She frames a critical contemporary debate with a very human face. We see through Karter the mistakes that we have made and critically, how much more needs to be done. This is essential reading for anyone who cares about justice.”

—Nancy Gertner, former U.S. federal judge, named one of “The Most Influential Lawyers of the Past 25 Years” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly

“Jean Trounstine has delivered a searing wake-up call about the need to reform and redeem our juvenile justice system. Sentencing children as adults is neither productive nor morally sound, and the tale of Karter Kane Reed exemplifies that truth.”

—Shon Hopwood, author of Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption

“Boy with a Knife is a masterful narrative rooted in the tragedy of a life lost and another launched into a complex journey of transformation. It is a must read—a compelling story and a deep reflection for teachers and students, advocates and policymakers, parents and youth on the meaning of justice.”

—Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD., William James College, National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, and the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital

“Gripping and important, Jean Trounstine’s real-life account about a boy thrust into an adult prison unfolds is heart-shattering drama. Written with deep compassion and grace, Trounstine brilliantly proves that people can—and do change—and so, too, can the system. A must-read for anyone who cares about justice and forgiveness—and that should be all of us.”

—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

“Boy With A Knife is a devastatingly detailed indictment of a criminal justice system that routinely sends youth to adult jails and prisons, yet it’s a story infused with much needed hope. A must read for anyone interested in criminal justice reform.”

—TJ Parsell, author of Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man’s Prison

“With meticulous research, Jean Trounstine mirrors what I’ve seen in U.S. prisons for over thirty-five years as a speaker and workshop facilitator, where I witnessed an increasing number of troubled youth being thrown away, abused, and in too many cases, prepared as higher-end criminals, all at taxpayers’ expense. Read this book and take action. Anybody can be saved. Anybody can change. It’s time our laws and justice systems aligned to this moral and biological fact.”

—Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. and Hearts & Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times

“Jean Trounstine has opened a window into the disaster of American juvenile justice. The story of Karter Kane Reed serves not only as a cautionary tale of what can happen to kids who commit serious crimes, but of how American juvenile justice policies actually hamper rehabilitation and the correction of flawed character. Hands down this book is certain to be a top criminal justice read for 2016. Also certain is that Trounstine will leave her readers with deeply personal questions about how best to deal with juvenile justice.”

—Chris Zoukis, award-winning incarcerated writer and author of College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher. Please direct inquires to:

Ig Publishing

Box 2547

New York, NY 10163

www.igpub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Trounstine, Jean R., 1946- author.

Title: Boy with a knife: a story of murder, remorse, and a prisoner’s fight for justice / Jean Trounstine.

Description: New York, NY: Ig Publishing, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016005389

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016005389

ISBN: 978-1-63246-025-7 (ebook)

For Karter Kane Reed and his family

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. MEETING KARTER

2. THE DAY BEFORE

3. HOW IT HAPPENED

4. JUVENILE JUSTICE

5. THE TRIAL

6. GROWING UP IN PRISON

III

7. PAROLE

8. VIOLATION

9. JUSTICE DELAYED

10. LAWYER UP

11. GETTING OUT

AFTERWORD

EPILOGUE BY KARTER REED

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

There is another Lady Justice, less well-known than the fair-minded goddess that adorns our courthouses. She is “Lady Justice Red,” a distortion of the icon in robes and blindfold. Lady Justice Red is not the impartial arbiter of cases that come before her.¹ Instead, she looks away from whatever she is judging. Her robes are blotted with blood. She “sees what she is paid to see,” her vision blurred behind bright red goggles.² Her sword lacks the acuity to cut through the evidence for and against those who appear before her. Rather than reason, Lady Justice Red relies on dice, cupped in one side of the Scales of Justice, which she rolls when judging the unfortunate.

And so it was, in a country ruled by Lady Justice Red, that sixteen-year-old Massachusetts

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