My name is Jabari Akil Veals and I was born on June 29, 1974. I was sentenced to die by suffocating imprisonment on May 15, 2008.

I wasn’t always an inmate, a defendant, or a case number. I can honestly say that I had a beautiful childhood! My father raised me for as long as he could until he and my mother separated. I was 4 years old. My dad was a devotee of Hare Krsna spiritual consciousness. My mother is a God-fearing Christian woman. I went to a Catholic elementary school. The neighborhood I grew up in was mostly Moorish American with members of the Nation of Islam. So I was open-minded about other peoples beliefs and lifestyles.

I grew up in a very diverse family. My father (a military man) married a strong, gorgeous German woman and adopted my brother, who is white. My dad and step-mother had seven more kids. We spent a lot of time with each other. My happiest memories are with my siblings, parents and our big extended family. I traveled around the world and saw so many places. Those memories keep me alive during my life sentence. They are all I have.

I was sentenced to life in prison for a fistful of crack. It wasn’t a big drug case. My arrest didn’t even make the news. The police searched a house where I was and found 56 grams of crack. That handful of crack was  the end of my freedom.

The judge who sentenced me to life believed the punishment was unfair. When I stood in the courtroom for my sentencing, the judge looked at me and said: “I never look forward to sentencing anybody to mandatory life . . . I do not take any pleasure in this at all, Mr. Veals. But I’m required to follow the law.” I felt like the law had both of us in handcuffs that day.