Open Letter to Judge Sean P. O’Donnell: I took the ACEs Quiz on Behalf of James and Jerome Taafulisia, and I got a 10.
Dear Judge O’Donnell,
My name is Michelle Phillips, and I am a third-year graduate student at Seattle University. My concentration is in clinical mental health counseling. In almost every class save for our counseling labs, we have discussed a research venture spearheaded by Kaiser-Permanente and Centers for Disease Control called the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. It is widely-known for outlining the tremendous impacts of childhood toxic stress. Childhood toxic stress and trauma affects the neurobiology of the brain and is often the precursor to the onset of many chronic health problems and the proclivity towards substance use and abuse. This research now shapes our clinical and scientific understanding and treatment methods as toxic stress experienced in childhood is a large part of mental illness in our country and the state of Washington. The burden of these effects has been the albatross of citizens and taxpayers for decades, and still, we haven’t addressed the root cause of any of our social problems.
One of the critical elements of this research proved that historical and transgenerational trauma passes from one generation to another. We know that toxic stress experienced in childhood or ACEs can alter how DNA functions. The effects can be transferred from mother to infant during pregnancy. We have seen this phenomenon with the descendants of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, for generations following the Holocaust, and even in the Irish population from the mid-19th century when Ireland experienced one of its most devastating famines. Maternal and prenatal mental health inextricably links the mental health of children to their mother’s. This research has far-reaching implications — more than we could have imagined.
The brain chemistry of children under toxic stress alters how they respond to situations while damaging their immune systems with fluctuating stress hormones and cortisol. With stress hormones awry and in a constant flight, fight or freeze state, we know that these children tend to be impulsive, hypervigilant, and flummoxed by the situations that most people can navigate with relative ease. With little more than a glance at the Seattle Times article outlining the details of the case and sentencing, I had identified the Taafulisia brothers as having experienced all 10 of the critical determinants creating the highest possible ACEs score without even reading the 9,000 pages of Child Protective Services reports presented in their cases.
They were the victims of childhood trauma, and they both were found to be intellectually delayed by forensic psychologists and behind their peers. James Taafulisia was born with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, which creates an even higher propensity toward impulsive and aggressive behavior. The life expectancy of people with fetal alcohol syndrome is 34 years of age, with leading causes of death being “external causes.” These account for 44% of the deaths, including completed suicide, accidents, overdose, and other various causes. The effects of FASD are not reversible, only mitigated through clinical mental health treatment. Federal prison is a far cry from being a site of care for them to receive the treatment needed for their particular mental and psychological challenges.
We have a saying, “if you do the crime, you do the time.” I would like to invite you to a critical inquiry. Who did the crime we allege of James and Jerome Taafulisia? Using a combination of neuroscience and restorative justice, I ask, are these young people responsible for serving the time of their foremothers and fathers, their parents, and their traumatic environment? We must implicate ourselves in the events that led up to this tragedy. We owe the children of Washington state better because the Taafulisia story is not the only one of its kind. Each of the unsheltered residents of the Jungle that day all had the same stories. When we overreact in a system that binds us to fatality and not hope, we cut off our nose just to spite our faces.
In our prison system, there is no hope of change. In this overly-harsh sentencing, you have done nothing to ensure that this will never happen again. You have only made it so that James Tran, and Jeannine Brooks, will never be killed again, yet sadly this is short-sighted justice. The unimaginative story of more Black and brown mentally ill men incarcerated in our country is not new or transformative.
I read in glottal silence the sentencing of 40 years. To what changed community or life will they return at that age? What can you say you have contributed toward bending the arc toward justice? More delicacy, care, and thoughtful intention are required to determine what it is just at a time like this. If you bend the wire, it will bend. We cannot use an arc if it breaks. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. tells us, “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” We know all justice is not just, and poorly wielded power and judgment that misses the mark affects each of us directly and indirectly.
Judge O’Donnell, my mother, always said, “to whom much is given, much is required.” I implore you to reconsider the sentencing of James and Jerome Taafulisia as it is not grounded in the scientific evidence presented in their case. As an emerging mental health clinician, I need to believe the research my field produces is valuable in changing the world in which we live. Please review the science presented by the defense and its implications on the Taafulisia brother’s lives and the lives of all Washingtonians.
Regards,
Michelle Phillips
Liberation Strategist
Seattle, WA
