Opinion ID: 2383775
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dortch's Rehabilitation

Text: Dortch was incarcerated in federal prison facilities from 1975 to 1990. By all accounts, as the Committee on Admissions states in its report, Dortch was a model prisoner during his 15 years of incarceration. He received training in accounting and earned money working in the UNICOR Federal Prison Industries program. The Committee found that Dortch also participated in educational and church-related activities, tutored and assisted other inmates, and directed a prison chapter of the NAACP. Prison officials commended him for his excellent institutional adjustment. Dortch was paroled by the United States Parole Commission at his first eligibility date, and he returned to Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1990. The Committee on Admissions found no evidence that Dortch ever violated any conditions of his parole or caused his parole supervisors concern over his adjustment to the community. The Parole Commission released Dortch from further supervision in June 1999, though he remains on parole and is subject to the resumption of supervision or even revocation if he is found not to be living a law-abiding and reputable life. Dortch applied for a Presidential pardon in 1997, but his application has not been acted upon. After he returned to Washington in 1990, Dortch was hired by the Covenant Baptist Church to work as a business manager. Dortch took the opportunity to become active in the Church. He taught adult Sunday School classes and served on the board of directors of an early childhood education program. The pastor of the Church told the Admissions Committee that Dortch was open and honest about his criminal past and was a very competent, efficient worker. Dortch remained an employee of the Church until 1992. Meanwhile, in August 1990, only a few months after his release from prison, Dortch applied for admission to the District of Columbia Law School. He disclosed his criminal record on his application in response to a question that asked him to describe a specific personal experience in which he was subjected to or witnessed some significant form of injustice. Dortch answered this question by depicting his own prosecution as an injustice indeed, as an abortion of justice that he had suffered: I am an ex-offender, and I have witnessed and experienced improprieties in the administration of justice. By virtue of a guilty plea, I was convicted of second degree murder, attempted bank robbery, and conspiracy, and I served fifteen years in prison. I did not kill anyone nor did I attempt to kill anyone nor was I present at the scene of the homicide, but the alleged factual basis for my plea was predicated upon the felony murder concept, which stipulates that each conspirator is equally accountable for every and anything that transpires in the furtherance of a felony, even though he may not participate in the overt act. The injustice that I suffered was at the hands of both the defense counsel, whom I paid in advance, and the prosecution which condoned, if not encouraged, the perjurious testimonies of the complaining officers. However, I am not bitter, because I did break the law, but not to the extent to which I was charged and prosecuted. The bottom line is that I did break the law, and had not I broken the law, I would not have been vulnerable to an abortion of justice. The District of Columbia Law School accepted Dortch as a student. He performed well in law school and was well respected. Of particular note, Dortch was awarded the Dean's Cup for outstanding community service, he was elected president of the Student Bar Association, and he was selected by his classmates to deliver the 1994 law school commencement address. Since his graduation, Dortch has served as an adjunct professor at the law school. From 1996 to 1997, Dortch resided in Charleston, West Virginia, where he worked as a paralegal in a law firm. In 1997 Dortch returned to the Washington area to work as a paralegal for a Maryland firm. Beginning in the fall of 1998, Dortch began working with the Time Dollar Youth Court, a diversion program for first-time juvenile offenders. Dortch eventually became the director of the program. He also has engaged in other public service activities. At the request of the National Black Police Association, Dortch traveled to Toronto, Canada, in September 2000, to participate in the International Symposium on People of Color in the Criminal Justice System. In January 2001, Dortch was appointed Director of the Violence Free Zone Initiative of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise at an annual salary of $80,000. Although Dortch has been a law-abiding citizen and lived a constructive life since his release from prison in 1990, he has made no apologies or restitution to the family of Officer Gail Cobb. [2] Dortch told the Committee on Admissions that he had conferred with the National Victim's Center and an expert on restorative justice and victim/offender mediation in an effort to bring about a reconciliation with the Cobb family. Nothing came of those efforts. [3]