Douglas “Duke” Shine Jr. is a monstrous Heartless Felon; Douglas “Duke” Shine Jr. is a mere 21-year-old 6’3″, 275 lb. man-child… albeit a murderous one. Word on the street was… if a member of his crew wanted someone capped with skill and alacrity they reached out to Duke – who allegedly was so cold-blooded that his blood pressure never rose as he was pumping bullets into rival gang members, and he damn sure didn’t show any emotion when Joan Synenberg bravely sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole.
“I’ll be back,” Duke said in response to a young woman who shouted out “Say your prayers, Duke,” after he was sentenced to three life sentences plus 380 years. He’ll no doubt strut around whatever prison he’s in for at least a decade before it hits him that the appeals lawyers are no longer working on his case; that “natural life” means just that: The only way Duke will ever leave prison is in a pine box. And as healthy as he looked at the time of sentencing that could be in 70 or 80 years. That’s a long time to live in a cage.
Duke has the size, speed and grit to be playing tight end on someone’s pro football team … if only his mother wasn’t so trifling that she wouldn’t take him to practice; and where the hell was Douglas Shine Sr.?
Charles See (the executive director of Community Re-Entry at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry for 43 years, perhaps the oldest such operation of its kind in the nation) and I got together via phone, both of us shaking our heads in hurt and disillusionment as yet another young brother is thrown so casually into the belly of the beast … as casually as Duke pulled the triggers on the automatic weapons he had in both hands in the barbershop. Many will say that prison is too good for him … that he belongs in the cemetery instead. But that view is wrong. In sane countries they realize that even the worst monsters grow out of it, and deserve second chances … even if those chances are 30 or 40 years down the road.
This is what we know for sure: Douglas Shine Jr. was found guilty of committing three murders and wounding several others in the “Chalk Linez Barbershop ” in 2015. The jury also found him guilty of multiple other violent offenses associated with what came to be known as the “barbershop tragedy.” After days of deliberation, the jury recommended the death penalty, leaving the judge in the case, the Honorable Joan Synenberg, the option under law of accepting that recommendation or, as Charles See said, “Act with courage and dignity, knowing that when she runs again six years from now someone is sure to bring the case up in an effort to unseat her. I’ve been around courtrooms for a long time now, and rarely have I seen a judge act with such accurate compassion and strength.”
See continued, “To the public, Shine’s fate seemed ‘open and shut.’ However, the judge had additional circumstances to consider before a just sentence could be meted out. During the sentencing phase of Shine’s trial, the horrific facts of his childhood were shared with the court. Throughout his young life, from the cradle, he was neglected, abused and devalued. He was exposed to violence, often visited upon him as well as being prevalent in his immediate household. Douglas’ mental development was arrested, which precipitated his entry, at age 10, into the juvenile justice system where he was introduced to the violence of gang life and survival of the fittest.
“After spending most of his teen years in and out of juvenile facilities, fending for himself to survive on the streets, he became a predator and his life’s path and sub-cultural choices lead him that fatal day in the barbershop, and later before Judge Synenberg who would be contemplating the imposition of the death penalty in his case.
“Judge Synenberg needed the wisdom of King Solomon of old,” said See. “She had to balance her vow to protect the public with her pledge to be just, fair and empathetic according to the law. And after a careful, thoughtful review of Duke’s life’s circumstances, Judge Synenberg elected not to impose the sentence of death; instead, she took into consideration the horrific circumstances of his young life and made the courageous decision on behalf of “the system” to own the failures of Douglas’ rearing; she imposed a sentence of life without the possibility of parole instead.
“Judge Synenberg realized that Douglas had been failed by all of the systems that were charged with helping him … every last one of them. And those systems are us … we are the ones who allow such failures to exist in our midst. In the end, the public should realize that Judge Synenberg, in her sentencing of Duke to life, owned the failures of that system … and she just may be the only person in the short life of Douglas Shine Jr. who ever held themselves accountable to him.”
Well said, Charles, well, said.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com
2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Who’s Accountable?”
Keith Hatten
Good knowledge.
Craig Wright
The system may have failed him, but his family was the first to fail him. To answer you initial question, they are accountable. Given the path Mr. Shine, Jr. was on, “Life” on the street would have most probably been much less that “Life” in prison.