"Child Porn": Final Update

My name is Joseph E. Duncan III. I am on Federal "death row" at the Terre Haute, IN USP (prison) for kidnapping, raping, and murdering children. If you've read this blog, then you already know that a few years ago my fiancée sent me a picture of a famous French child model named Thylane Blondeau, who is known for her very provocative pictures in popular magazines, such as Vogue.

My fiancée had found the picture in fact on Vogue Magazine's website, and she printed some off to send me as part of a discussion we were having about the way children are sexualized in popular media.

I received the letter with these pictures through regular inmate mail. The envelope had been opened, and (presumably) the contents had been inspected and found acceptable. I had no reason to think the pictures were not allowed, nor that they should have been restricted. In one of the pictures, little miss Blondeau was indeed shirtless, and posing in a pair of pants in her signature provocative way. But, the girl was clearly prepubescent, and as flat-chested as any boy would be at the same age, so I figured, reasonably, that the prison policy against having pictures of women's breasts did not apply. I was wrong.

When a guard found this picture in my cell he wrote me up for having "child porn". The guard said in his "Incident Report" (disciplinary action) that I had violated rule #305 "Possession of anything not authorized and not issued through regular institutional channels".

Obviously, the picture had been issued to me, after being inspected by staff in the mail-room, and I still had the letter it came in to prove it (the letter itself clearly references and describes the pictures enclosed as they were being discussed). But, I was found "guilty" by the DHO (Disciplinary Hearing Officer) and harshly sanctioned (120 days loss of commissary, visiting, and phone privileges, plus a $75 fine - which happened to be all the money I had at that time!).

So I appealed over and over again. My main issue was that I was found "guilty" for something the policy itself says explicitly I was not guilty for. The picture was issued to me through regular prison mail, and I had no reason to think it was not "authorized" accordingly.

Nonetheless, I lost one appeal after another, for reasons that became even more ridiculous than the original incident report! The regional office claimed that the picture does show a "female breast" even if it is "undeveloped"... seriously? And even if it did show a real woman's breast (fully developed), the fact remains that it was handed to me by a prison guard passing out mail, and the envelope was opened and contents inspected... per policy, so I had no reason to think it was not authorized (there is no policy that "forbids" prisoners to have pictures of women's breasts, only a policy that requires the warden to restrict such pictures coming in through the mail. So if any policies were violated it was by the "warden", not me!)

All of my appeals fell on deaf ears, until the warden at some point decided that because it was my first "incident report" (ever) that it should have been handled at the "unit level" (UDC instead of DHO hearing). So they found me guilty again, at another hearing, ignoring again all the facts and evidence, not to mention rules, policies and Federal laws that I presented as "evidence" at my hearing that I had done nothing wrong.

After several years appealing (in order to "exhaust my institutional remedies"), I eventually tried to take it to a Federal judge by filing a Habeas Corpus in Federal court. But the judge quickly dismissed my complaint, stating that as long as the disciplinary action does not cause me to serve more time (which it can't because my sentence is "death"), then the prison can punish me however they like, and the court (judge) has no jurisdiction.

Of course that's not true either. But, I don't have the legal prowess nor financial resources (it would cost about $400 to appeal the judge's dismissal, and/or proceed under a different legal avenue... and new "prison litigation" reform laws require prisoners to pay the full amount of such fees, regardless of any "forma pauperis" status).

So, once more the System has proven to me that I have no "rights", and that "they" can punish me however and whenever they like, regardless of any rules or laws that pretend to prevent them from doing so. And once more I ponder how they could ever expect me to "respect" them or their "System" of so-called "law and order", which has only proven itself to be anything but what it pretends.

The System does what it wants, and then uses the premise of "justice" as an excuse. The "good guys" are the real "bad guys", and us "bad guys" are just a bunch of beaten down dogs with little choice but to bite back whenever we can in order to defend ourselves. Thus the System propagates...

[J.D. August 1, 2018]

P.S. If you think I deserve to be punished "unfairly" because of what I did to children then you are using the exact same excuse that all "do-gooders" use when they do "evil"... judgment and condemnation. There's nothing "wrong" with having an opinion. But when you impose your opinion upon others, it becomes a judgment that can never be "right". I would know.