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Is Michigan's prison system too rigid on reform? By SHAUN BYRON Of The Oakland Press
July 13, 2008 It's a sad fact he is dealing with, knowing that he'll be in his 30s when he gets a chance at college and the minimum wage jobs many people have when they are just starting out in life. "I've got friends who are married, who have kids, have businesses and are doing great," says Copenhaver, with a twinge of melancholy. "I've got to start back over from age 18." Copenhaver is an inmate of the state's prison system who was re-incarcerated as a parole violator. His violation? It was sleeping in the attic of a friend's parents' house where two toy guns that shoot plastic pellets and have orange barrels were found during a surprise inspection. Copenhaver will not be eligible to go back before the parole board until November 2010. His earliest release date is January 2011. He will be just shy of his 31st birthday. "I never used them, they were never in my possession and I didn't use it as a weapon," said Copenhaver by phone from the Kinross Correctional Facility in the small northern Michigan town of Kincheloe, about 20 minutes south of Sault Ste. Marie. Ryan's story Copenhaver attended and graduated from Waterford Mott High School in 1998. By his own words and those of his father, Joe Copenhaver of Waterford Township, he was a good kid. "I never had any problems with him up until his car accident," Joe said. "After the car accident, they threw the book at him." It was Aug. 6, 1999, when the then 19-year-old's life changed forever. Amanda DeMar of Rochester knew Ryan in high school and said it was an unfortunate set of circumstances. "He was at a party, which was odd for Ryan. He didn't go to parties. He was more of a coffee shop kind of guy," she said. Copenhaver, according to DeMar, drank beer at some point during the party and then later offered to drive Scott Winton Cashero Jr. and Bradley James Lewis to a store in a truck. While driving on Lochaven Road, near Cooley Lake Road, Copenhaver lost control of the vehicle where the pavement turned to gravel. "He hit the gravel and they flipped and one of the passengers went outside the passenger window and was killed," DeMar said. "The one in the back seat screwed up his leg and Ryan was pretty rattled and got a good cut on his hand." Cashero died and Lewis was injured. DeMar said Copenhaver grasped from the beginning what had happened was wrong and that a person had lost his life. "He always did what he was supposed to do," she said. "He was always a good influence on the other people, myself included. "He didn't get into drugs and alcohol." Copenhaver says it was the first and last time he drank alcohol. Cashero's mother, Laurel Cashero of Livonia, says she holds no grudge against Copenhaver. "It was an accident," she said. In 2000, not yet 20 years old, he pleaded no contest to charges of drunken driving causing death and serious injury. Copenhaver made the plea, knowing he could face up to 15 years in prison. "I did three years and seven months," he said. "I didn't have a problem doing it. The family of the man who died, they didn't intend on me doing all that time. "I did the time though. I got focused on my last bit." Copenhaver began writing, compiling 40 stories he hopes to one day publish. He also helped teach inmates how to read and had a reputation as a model prisoner. "It was a time for me to reflect upon my life and figure out which direction I'm going to go in," he said. A free man Copenhaver was released from prison May 1, 2004. At that time, he says he set out to follow the rules while saving money for college and helping to pay for his ailing mother's medical bills. "My mother has various mental illnesses," said Copenhaver, adding that neither she nor his father could afford her medications. Making matters worse was that the home he had grown up in had burned down. That's when Derek Palmer, a friend of Copenhaver, said he could sleep in his parents' attic. The home was also an ideal location as the family appeared to have a stable household where he wouldn't be in danger of a possible parole violation, Copenhaver said. With a place to stay, he began working as a cook at a local Bob Evans restaurant. A short time later, he took a second job at Matrix System Automotive Finishes in Walled Lake. Copenhaver said he later left Bob Evans to work at Gordon Food Service in Waterford Township. "I was on parole for 24 months," he said. "I looked at that as being an opportunity to save as much money as I could and get a career and do the family situation." According to a copy of his parole violation report, Copenhaver had a "positive" adjustment to his release. He never tested positive for alcohol or drugs and made every effort to pay his parole-ordered fees after being released from prison. The report states Copenhaver worked an average of 56 hours a week and maintained a "forthright and respectful demeanor." When he wasn't working, Copenhaver said he was helping with Skip Bushart's Fallen Heroes Memorial Foundation. Copenhaver grew up with Bushart's son, Pfc. Damian Bushart, who died while serving in Iraq on Nov. 22, 2003. He had also managed to find a girlfriend, a girl named Katie, who is the daughter of Waterford Township resident Jill Grix. Jill Grix said Copenhaver was polite, brutally honest and had a strong sense of family obligations. He also had a driving ambition and was a good influence on her daughter, she said. "I got to know him pretty well," she said. "He watched my (other) daughter a couple of times for me when I was in a pinch. "He was just a really hard-working kid." Surprise search Everything appeared to be going well for Copenhaver by the start of 2006. He had just a few more months on his parole when a surprise inspection of his room was performed Jan. 25, 2006. During the inspection, Copenhaver readily admitted to officers he had been given a gift of canned cherries that had liquid alcohol in it. The cherries and alcohol were dumped out. However, the officers also found two "air guns" on a bookshelf, which were confiscated. Copenhaver says he had never known the "toy guns" were in the room and were not among his belongings. "They were covered in dust," he said. "They had no fingerprints on them." He was told to call his parole officer the next day. Copenhaver called his parole officer, who instructed him to call the substance abuse facility he had been going to and that he would have to perform drug and alcohol tests that day. "When they do that, you know you are getting locked up," he said. Copenhaver was taken back into custody Jan. 26 for possessing weapons. Back in jail According to the state's zero-tolerance gun policy, "any parolee found guilty of owning or possessing a firearm, having a firearm under his or her control or being in the company of a person with a firearm, the parolee will be returned to prison for the remainder of their prison sentence or at least five years, whichever is greater." The policy has an attached rule stating this includes toy guns. According to a hearing summary on his parole violations, Copenhaver was found not guilty of possessing alcohol, but guilty of having two "air guns." The parole board ordered him back to prison, stating his case would be reviewed in November 2010. This was despite Copenhaver's parole officer reporting he wasn't breaking any rules and the hearing officer requesting the parole board take an accelerated review of the case -- as well as positive statements from his friends, family and employers. His Southfield-based attorney, Lawrence Shulman, filed a motion for accelerated review and parole reconsideration in October 2007. Shulman said he didn't receive a response from them until March. Even then, he said, they only responded that they had received his motion and were in the process of reviewing it. Shulman says the rule has value to it, but he doesn't believe this is something lawmakers had anticipated when they wrote it. "Three months later, he would have been off and would have been doing fine," he said. "Even though the supervising agent who knows him real well and says he is doing a good job, the hearing officer says I've heard everything and he really deserves an accelerated review, you get to the one-page letter from the parole board saying we'll see you in five years." Shulman says he questions how many other people were doing well on parole before being locked back up on the same allegations. "If there are more people swept up in this zero tolerance policy who adjusted well like this, I mean, we are spending a lot of money. It costs $20,000 a year to incarcerate these guys," he said. "When you have someone (who) is doing well, after five years up there, that is $100,000." Grass-roots support DeMar, meanwhile, has made numerous phone calls and even sought help from Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, on who to contact for answers. Calls placed to Bishop's office seeking comment on the subject of prison reform were not returned. DeMar says the case always seems to bring about the same reaction from strangers when she tells them about Copenhaver's imprisonment. "When you tell anyone about this case, they always say there has to be something else. It's really hard to believe," she said. Grix says she was forced to see her daughter give up a lot of hopes and dreams because Copenhaver was no longer in her life. Although the relationship between the two has ended, Grix has taken on Copenhaver's case as if he were her own son. "Ryan had become part of our family," she said. "We didn't understand it at all. There is no reason for Ryan to end up back in jail." The two women -- along with his family, former employers and numerous friends -- have written countless letters to the parole board and politicians asking for help. Between 50 and 65 people showed up at an impromptu and informal rally held in early June at Waterford Mott High School. They've made phone calls to state officials, while remaining in contact with Shulman and speaking almost weekly with Copenhaver via phone. Their requests have yet to spark any real movement by the parole board, or a reexamination into the policy. "It's just incredibly frustrating," Grix laments. Copenhaver, meanwhile, says going back to prison was his worst nightmare coming true. "I didn't like it, but I dealt with it," he says. "Coming back, it was, seriously, like molten lava in your chest." For the first few months, Copenhaver says he slept a lot, made phone calls and wrote letters. He has also been making use of the law library, doing research and says the zero tolerance policy regarding toy weapons is so vague that anyone could be locked up. And, despite facing his worst nightmare, Copenhaver remains positive things will get better. "I've always been able to get back on my feet," he said. "I will work hard and get back on my feet and pursue college."
Contact staff writer Shaun Byron at (248) 745-4685 or shaun.byron@oakpress.com.
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