A Personal Reflection from the Author of This Project

The story of Black & Simpson is where my journey into therapeutic jurisprudence and restorative justice truly began. I encountered this case more than a decade ago, and it has never left me. It challenged everything I thought I understood about justice, responsibility, and what it means to face harm with honesty instead of fear. It became a quiet turning point — one that reshaped not only my professional path, but my understanding of what human-centered justice can be.

In 2000, Patricia Rose was killed in her home by Ivan Simpson. Her father, Hector Black, lived through a kind of loss that defies language. The court sentenced Simpson to life without parole. Legally, the matter was settled. But grief does not end when a sentence is pronounced, and the law cannot close a wound that deep.

At some point after the trial, Hector did something profoundly unexpected: he wrote a letter to the man who had taken his daughter’s life. In that letter, he said he forgave him. It was not a symbolic gesture. It was a lifeline — a way of stepping out of the consuming gravity of hatred. That single act opened a correspondence that continued for nearly fifteen years. A father and a convicted murderer — writing to one another about loss, guilt, love, memory, and responsibility.

When I first learned about this exchange, something in me shifted. I saw clearly how narrow our traditional narrative of justice can be. Courts can determine guilt and impose punishment, but they cannot create meaning. They cannot give survivors a path toward healing, nor offer offenders a chance to understand the human impact of their actions. Yet this correspondence did both.

Hector’s forgiveness was not an absolution. It was a way to survive what had been done to him.
And for Simpson, those letters were the only place where he could truly face the harm he caused as a human reality, not an abstract legal fact. Their dialogue did not soften the crime or erase its brutality. It simply made space for truth — the kind of truth that does not fit easily into legal forms, but that matters deeply for human dignity.

This case became a lens through which I began to see the law differently. Not just as a system of rules, but as a system that shapes people’s emotional, psychological, and moral lives. It taught me that justice is not complete when punishment is delivered; justice becomes whole only when we acknowledge the human beings who remain on all sides of harm. It taught me that accountability and healing can coexist, and that sometimes the most transformative part of justice begins after the courtroom doors have closed.

For those who want to hear Hector Black’s own voice — calm, honest, and astonishingly generous — I recommend this short video, which remains one of the most powerful reflections on forgiveness I have ever encountered:
Hector Black | Forgiveness | New York City Mainstage 2013

This project stands, in part, on the foundation of that story. On the belief that meaningful justice requires courage, truthfulness, and humanity — not only from systems, but from each of us. And it stands on the conviction that our experiences, even painful ones, hold the potential to illuminate the path forward for others.

If you carry a story of your own — about justice, loss, forgiveness, accountability, or transformation — I invite you to share it with us. You may choose to remain anonymous. What matters is that your voice becomes part of this space, so that together we can continue shaping a vision of justice that honors the complexity of being human.

Wanna share your story? Write to us and maybe it will be helpful for someone else. soullaw.org@gmail.com