Appeal to Gov. Culver

What follows is the clemency request letter I mailed to Governor Culver in January:

1/11/07

Dear Governor Culver,

Congratulations on your inauguration as governor. I had a Culver/Judge bumper sticker on my car, attended your rallies in both Mt. Pleasant and Iowa City the Sunday before the election, voted for you on Election Day, and celebrated your victory on election night.

I am writing to encourage clemency for Tracey Dyess.

I was only just beginning to get to know Tracey when her clemency application was filed in the fall, so I’m not one of the references included in her clemency application. I have come to know her since then through visits and correspondence, and I’m sending this reference to supplement her clemency application.

I serve as pastor of Pleasant View Mennonite Church in Mt. Pleasant. When I learned in a Des Moines Register article last fall that Tracey, whose situation I'd followed in the paper for over a year, was incarcerated here at the women's unit in Mt. Pleasant, I wrote her a sympathetic note. She responded and included a visitation form, and since then, we've had many visits and several letters exchanged.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the unusual circumstances for which Tracey Dyess is in prison: that in an attempt to end her stepfather's abuse of her and her younger sister and unwilling to simply run away and her abandon her younger siblings for whom she felt great responsibility, she set fire to the house.

In my view, it was an injustice that the book was thrown at her for this in the first place, and I have little doubt that if she’d had enough money for a quality legal defense team, a jury would have acquitted her. The state that intervened seriously neither when she and her siblings were being sexually abused nor when they were withheld from school finally took notice of her only to prosecute her for a sad and failed attempt to put an end to the abuse. From the very beginning, her harsh sentence has been an offense to justice, in my view. I’m glad that Iowa gives the governor the option of clemency for just such situations.

At the time of this writing, I've had approximately eight 2-hour visits with Tracey. My impressions of her are as follows.

Tracey Dyess is not a threat to anyone. Her life situation two years ago pushed her to a breaking point that few of us could withstand, especially when seventeen. I know she deeply regrets the deaths of her siblings and often replays how she could have dealt with their collective nightmare differently. Even if she would ever find herself backed in a corner by an
abuser again, I'm confident that she -- more than the most of the rest of us -- has given thought to ways to escape and get help.

If Tracey would be released from prison and needed a place to stay for a while, I would not hesitate to welcome her into our home with my family -- including my wife, college-age niece, and 13-year-old son. I consider Tracey to be absolutely no risk.

I also know that Tracey has given much thought to her mother's negative example of involvement in a series of abusive relationships. Tracey knows that abuse victims have a tendency to fall into future abusive relationships. Though anyone can get involved with an abuser, I suspect that Tracey's antennae are tuned to pick up danger signs and get out of such situations quickly.

Tracey is a kind, polite, and pleasant-to-be-with young woman. Often at our visits, we spend part of our time just playing Scrabble. She’s a relaxed, non-competitive person (and the fastest Scrabble player I’ve ever played against). She’s someone who will easily have positive, healthy friendships when given the opportunity. My observation of her interaction with the prison guards is that they, too, like her and enjoy relating to her.

Tracey has given much thought to what she’ll do with her life when she leaves prison. Her neglectful mother and abusive stepfather kept her out of school to care for her younger siblings, but Tracey is working to finish her GED. She also has college ambitions that seem to me very realistic. Among other things, I’ve discovered that she’s a voracious reader of fantasy novels.

As for ambitions beyond school, Tracey understandably has a special interest in finding a way to be an advocate for victims of domestic abuse. She wants to play a positive role in the world, and I’m confident that she will when given the opportunity.

My impression is that Tracey is probably the member of her dysfunctional family who has it most together. That’s why she was the one who did the caring for her younger siblings and why she – rather than any of the adults – was the one who felt all the pressure to do something to try to end a horrible situation. Now older and wiser and away from her childhood of domestic abuse, Tracey’s natural leadership abilities will be something she and society will be able to draw upon in good ways. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find her doing something like running an effective domestic violence center in ten years. Or maybe, as she moves away from her past, her talents and interests will flower in other ways.

Finally, my impression is that the state prison system is not well equipped to provide the kind of therapy from which Tracey could most benefit as an abuse victim. Prisoners with substance addictions and several other issues have effective programs, but my impression is that Tracey’s core issues are not being effectively addressed and could best be worked at through quality professional counseling outside the prison system.

Also, some of the news accounts of the fire in Griswold in 2005 have made a point of describing Tracey as emotionless. My sense of her is that she’s a person who’s had to deal with such an unbearable amount of sadness that, to hold it together, she’s learned to bottle it up tight. In my experience, this is a common survival mechanism for long-term abuse victims -- as well for others, such as combat veterans -- whose extreme trauma seems too overwhelming to deal with.

If you get a chance, I’d encourage you to consider visiting with Tracey yourself as part of the discernment process regarding her clemency application.

Thank you for your time and for your attention to Tracey’s situation. I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

John Zimmerman
Pastor of Pleasant View Mennonite Church