Gaylord Salters

Would justice have been better served if Gaylord Salters was required to serve his last six years in prison? That’s the question a judge in Connecticut was required to answer in 2022.

Salters was sentenced to serve 24 years for shooting two individuals at age 21, a conviction that he contests. At the time of the resentencing hearing, he had served 19 years and was 47 years old.

After a lengthy hearing, the judge found that Salters had established “good cause” to reduce his sentence and ordered his release.¹)

In a book he published while in prison, Momma Bear, Salters presents a fictional story, which is a reflection of his own life experiences growing up in public housing during the crack cocaine era and his mother’s experience trying to protect her children. To make ends meet, he and his younger brother mowed lawns and shoveled snow. But when they became old enough to get a job, drugs hit the community where he lived and the jobs were gone. So they resorted to selling drugs.

It was perhaps those choices that caused police to focus on Salters when two men were shot. A significant piece of evidence was the testimony of one of the survivors, who identified Salters as the shooter. But in 2018, that survivor fully recanted and explained that he implicated Salters in order to avoid a mandatory prison sentence.²

Prison did not transform Salters’ thinking – he maintained his drive in spite of prison. “I knew what I had to do. They throw people away [in prison]. I was physically locked up. But I would never relinquish my mind.”³ Salters had four children that he wanted to support while incarcerated. So he started his own publication company, Go Get It Publishing – and began publishing some of his writing.⁴ The name Go Get It is his mission statement in life – “It’s up to you to put your best foot forward and do what you have to do in order to get to where you want to be. Period.”⁵

Salters credits an entrepreneurial education program run inside of the prison by a local college, Goodwin University, for providing him with support, education, and access to expert assistance to build his company.⁶

In 2021, Connecticut passed a second look law allowing judges to modify sentences without the need for prosecutorial consent. This change opened the door for many, like Salters, to have a judge reconsider their sentences.

At the reconsideration hearing Salters’ son spoke on his father’s behalf: “The things that he has done even while being locked up has shown me how great of a father and a man he would have been if he hadn’t been locked up as well. I just know that with freedom, there is nothing but positive things that will come out of him being outside.”⁷

Since leaving prison, Salters has become a staunch advocate against wrongful convictions and mass incarceration.⁸ In 2023, the New Haven Independent announced Salters as its New Havener of the Year for his activism.⁹ He is currently teaching a curriculum at a local Boys and Girls Club and wants to develop this program nationwide. He is also working with another local organization to uplift urban communities and is starting his own clothing line.

But for Connecticut’s second look law, Salters would still be in prison today. Typically, even people who are wrongfully convicted have few opportunities to challenge their conviction. Second look laws therefore also expand opportunities for releasing people who are innocent. Salters’ innocence claim does not appear to have affected the judge’s decision. Instead, the judge cited his good prison record, work and educational accomplishments, his publications, and his solid family relationships with his children. Both surviving victims supported his release.

When asked about the others he left behind, Salters explained that there are a lot of productive people in prison who have matured. “You can look at a person’s fingerprint in prison, you can look at their history . . . you can see the signs that are indicative of reform, because they stick out like a sore thumb . . . It’s not the prison. It’s the individual . . .Through that maturation, you will see a lot of individuals who are worthy of that second chance.¹⁰”