Kassan’s Story

On the evening of September 20, 1994, Kassan Messiah was at an ice cream parlor in Newark, NJ. The  29-year-old doting husband and father of two young children was an up-and-coming professional boxer. Recently featured on ESPN, his career was taking off. 

The same night, across the river in Dobbs Ferry, NY an insurance agent was murdered in a brutal execution-style killing. The victim’s business partner - the only witness and the police’s original suspect - claimed only that a “Black man” had done it. 

Nothing linked Kassan to the crime. Instead, it was textbook incidents of living while Black [1] that led police to Kassan’s front door. In the weeks prior to the killing, Kassan had lent his car to a friend for an appointment in Dobbs Ferry; another time, he had car trouble in a neighboring village. In majority-White Westchester County, police were called both times, and took down his license plate number. Kassan was innocent - but he was a Black man with a car and a prior conviction, and that was enough for the police. 

As a juvenile, Kassan was an accessory to a crime - an act he deeply regrets. At 14, he had little choice but to accept a plea deal that included being tried as an adult. The “disastrous” effects of trying juveniles in criminal court during the tough-on-crime era are well documented [2]; for Kassan, it meant a presumption of guilt for a crime he didn’t commit.

District Attorney Jeanine Pirro was a familiar voice on TV, contributing to the sensational coverage of O.J. Simpson’s arrest and trial. With no physical evidence pointing to Kassan, no connection to the victim, and no motive, Pirro focused on selling the narrative of a violent Black man menacing the community. Kassan’s prior conviction helped. Engineering an all-White jury helped more.

The prosecution excluded Black jurors using peremptory challenges - a legal tactic that’s known now to be so persistently discriminatory that Arizona banned it in 2022, and 15 other states including New York are considering ban or reform [3, 4]. Unfortunately, 30 years ago when Kassan and his attorneys objected to discrimination during jury selection, the judge called it “nonsense” [5]. Despite polygraph-supported protestations of innocence and multiple witnesses who saw him 35 miles away, Kassan’s defense fell on deaf ears. He was convicted and given the maximum sentence, 37-and-a half years to life. He has served close to 30 years.

II.

Despite being in prison, Kassan Sr. and his wife Lorraine have maintained a loving marriage, now with three adult children, Imani, Kassan Jr., and Soigné. Over the last 30 years, Kassan Sr. has been housed at nine different prisons across the state. Distance from home had no impact on the family’s commitment to seeing him twice a month - even when he was as far as the edge of the border with Canada, and it took an all-night journey or arriving at the prison at 3 am to visit. Dedicated to his children’s education, Kassan Sr. insisted that the first hour of each visit was spent on schoolwork. Studying the curricula, he prepared for the visits in advance. The result was three children graduating high school at the top of their classes, one as Valedictorian. 

The family is still extremely tight-knit. Kassan Sr. calls Soigné and Lorraine everyday. Imani lives closest to Eastern Correctional Facility and visits as often as possible; Lorraine visits every two weeks. Family decisions aren’t made without input from all five members of the Messiah family.

Unsurprisingly given his dedication as a father, Kassan Sr. is a mentor to other incarcerated men. His belief in the power of education has led many of his mentees to obtain their GEDs, Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees. Currently pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Science at Bard College, Kassan is a certified legal researcher and master barber. He is well respected in prison, extending kindness to everyone - incarcerated people and staff alike. A leader at Eastern, he’s been elected President of the Inmate Liaison Committee multiple times.

Kassan Messiah hasn’t let incarceration stop him from being a strong father and community leader. He has not let the injustice of his sentence discourage him from improving his life or the lives of those around him. His innocence is known by his family, his supporters and his legal team. It will be proven in a court of law one day. But until that day comes, there is nothing more important than this:

Kassan Messiah needs to come home.

1 “Living While Black and the criminalization of blackness.” Lockhart, Vox.com (2018): https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/8/1/17616528/racial-profiling-police-911-living-while-black  

2 The Impact of Prosecuting Youth in the Adult Crinimal Justice System: A review of the literature. UCLA School of Law Juvenile Justice Project (2010). http://www.antoniocasella.eu/restorative/UCLA_july2010.pdf 

3 Batson Reform: State by State. Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic (2023). https://www.law.berkeley.edu/experiential/clinics/death-penalty-clinic/projects-and-cases/whitewashing-the-jury-box-how-california-perpetuates-the-discriminatory-exclusion-of-black-and-latinx-jurors/batson-reform-state-by-state/ 

4 New York State Senate Bill S6066: Repeals law permitting peremptory challenges of trial jurors (2021). https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/S6066 

5 MESSIAH v. DUNCAN (2006), United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.  https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-2nd-circuit/1085474.html