What's Next For Duncan?

The California (Riverside County, Indio) case is indefinitely stalled while Duncan prepares for an eventual trial. The next status hearing is June 11th, and there is a tentative trial date set for some time in September (me thinks), but that will be rescheduled for probably the middle of next year since there is no possibility that Duncan will be prepared for trial this year (or next for that matter).
The federal appeal is still question. The appellate court should decide within a few months whether or not they will accept an appeal filed by Duncan's stand-by counsel without his consent.
If they accept the appeal then it could take another one or two years for them to rule on it. The appeal issue will be Duncan's competency to represent himself.
If the appeal is not allowed then Duncan could be scheduled for execution by the end of this year or early next year. There would be no further appeals to delay what Duncan calls his „release date”.
However, if California decides that it still wants „justice for Anthony Martinez” then they could delay the federal execution until after the state's trial. Of course, if they do not delay the federal execution for their demands of „justice” then they'll only be exposing themselves as the hypocrites and murderers that they really are. I would happily welcome them to the club. :)

Not So Naked Lunch

"Tacos," at least that's what I've heard today's lunch called more than once by the deputies. I get one "hot meal" a day, and lunch is it; thank god only one! I refused to eat my "hot meals" at all for more than two months straight when I first got here over a year ago once I saw the way it was served. Because I am in "isolation" all my "hot meals" are served in three compartment styrofoam trays, which means the food routinely gets mixed together; I get gravy in my pudding and pudding in my salad all the time. Today we had beans, ground meat (possibly beef, possibly not meat at all). Iceberg lettuce and salsa. I was lucky and they did not put the salsa directly on the beans or meat today, so I only had to pick a few green peppers and onions out of the meat and I was good to go. I like "taco" days merely because of the quantity of food I get. It means I don't have to be hungry later. Even if they dump the salsa on the meat and beans I will either scrape as much off as i can or just mix it in and count my blessings that I have plenty to eat as it burns its way down to my stomach. We also get a small packet of artificially sweetened juice (to mix with 8 ounces of water), which was orange today. And a single pack of dressing (italian today) that I usually save until I have enough to actually use for either a salad or on my hard boiled eggs in the morning (since we get no salt or anything else to put on the eggs). Actually the "hot meals" aren't all that bad compared to other jails (ADA County jail in Idaho was hands down the worst food I have ever had to eat in my life, with Kootenai County jail a close second-even the plain bread tasted horrible-here in Indio the bread is pretty good!). The only problem here isn't the food itself so much as the propensity they have for peppering it to the death with green, black, red, and other unamable peppers! Yuk! Don't people realize that pepper only came into use historically as a way to mask the flavor of spoiled and rotting food. And that's exactly all it's good for since even a little will completely dominate the taste buds so you can't taste anything else. A far far cry from plain unsalted popcorn!

Bugs Under The Toilet

Indio jail is by far the most disgustingly filthy jail I have ever been in. And as a rule, jails are pretty disgusting. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that this jail is as close to the Mexican border as I have ever been (in jail that is). I would imagine this place is an exercise in sanitation compared to an actual Mexican jail. I have been confined here in "isolation" (a cell by myself) for over 15 months now and though I have asked several times to have my cell cleaned, or even to just be given some cleaning supplies so I can do it myself, I have received neither. So I use a thin wash rag that I bought on commissary, and a bar of soap, to clean everything from the walls to the floor and even the toilet (which has some strange black mold growing in it that quickly spreads if I don't keep it washed out). When I first moved into this cell they told me they "cleaned it out" for me. But, the walls were not touched and were spattered with food and body fluids (goobers and probably semen). The floor had goobers too that I had to soak for several minutes in order to remove, not to mention layers of black and grimmy crude that to this day I have still been unable to clean out of all the corners (though I keep trying). Well, actually this is the fourth different isolation cell I have been moved to here in Indio (they only have four) and I have meticulously cleaned them all. This one (cell 19-4) was by far the filthiest. Now at least I have it under control. I can't do much about the grime and bugs (pincher bugs, crickets, and little black things) that live behind and under the toilet. I leave the crickets alone usually (unless they start getting a little too bold and I find them crawling on me-then it's down the toilet they go along with all the pincher bugs I find). But at least the walls are cleaned up to as high as I can reach. I just have to ignore all the blobs of toilet paper stuck to the ceiling and on the light up there. So I manage. And now the only really disgusting filthiness I have to put up with is when they take me to the shower cell where there are regularly 50 or more flies on the walls, and maggots crawling out of the cruded over drains in the floor. In the shower I have too often seen blood on the walls and floor, used bandages, and all kinds of other refuse that tends to build for weeks at a time before being swept out (not cleaned at all). And worst of all...poo! Oh well, at least the water is copiously warm.

Breakfast In Bed

For breakfast today I was given a brown paper sack ("lunch sack") that contained one slice of bread, 2 oz of grape jelly, 2 hard boiled eggs, a banana, a double serving size bag of generic cocoa crispies, a styrofoam cereal bowl and a plastic spoon. I always received one eight ounce carton of fat free milk (fairly fresh this morning). This was a relatively good breakfast. On a "bad" breakfast day I might get: one plain "nutri-grain" donut (unsweetened and hardly edible), a bruised and blackened, or freezer burned, or split open banana. (i.e. inedible), a double serving size bag of plain generic rice crispies (no sugar or other sweetener), the bowl and spoon, and one warm and/or sour non-fat milk. Breakfast usually oscillates between these two extremes with a tendency (fortunately) toward the "good" breakfast days. I am fed each morning around 4:00 am (give or take ten minutes I suppose) through a hatch in the door of the cell. Having no place else to sit, I enjoy my meals while sitting on the concrete bunk, "breakfast in bed!" I always appreciate the food I am given and consistently thank the deputy who hands it to me though hatch. I never forget that millions are starving in this world every day.

Eating Meat Free (Dinner)

"Four-thirty you can eat meat free! Ha Ha Ha Ha !" So the jolly mental patient said repetitiously outside of the Sexual Psychopath ward window at Western State Hospital while I was there from 1980 to '82. We all assumed he was so flabbergasted by the concept of free meat to eat that he went insane. Well, so far I'm managing to cling to my own sanity as I am served dinner every day around four o'clock in a brown lunch bag. Today was very typical: One slice of processed cheese, one slice of processed turkey lunch meat, about 10 ounces of grated carrots (in a styrofoam cup), two slices of bread (mashed, but not intentionally today), a rime apple, the obligatory eight ounces of fat free milk, a plastic spoon and three packs of mayo, (one for the sandwich and two for the carrot salad). I had saved one of my boiled eggs from breakfast this morning, as I often do, and chopped it up in a saved styrofoam cereal bowl using the edge of the spoon. Then, I mixed in two packets of mayo to make egg salad, which I added to the sandwich to make it a little more interesting (not to mention satisfying). Now you know.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Deputies

Some of the deputies (jail guards) seem to think they are still in high school, where being "cool" requires them to harass the class "nerd" in front of their friends. Except instead of a nerd it is now a "child killer" that they feel compelled to taunt in order to impress each other. I have been called names, had my food mashed, denied toilet paper, frequently startled awake at night, and even farted on! (How childish is that?) All by jail deputies here in California, who are paid $25-$30 per hour with excellent benefits to perpetrate their little high school pranks. You would think with that kind of money they could find better ways to impress each other. Most of the deputies are genuinely cool though. That is, they don't feel any need to prove their "coolness" (i.e. they act like adults). As for the adolescents; they are a nuisance, but by being so they make themselves insignificant.

"I am here, I have come."

I am here...in jail...in California...facing death. This is my worst nightmare come true. It is the thing I have feared more than anything for most of my adult life. It was that fear that ultimately drove me here. But now...I'm not afraid any more. I'm not sad, or depressed, or angry. Of course, I'm not happy or pleased either. I am just...here...and I'm not ill, worried, or suffering. I get stressed over the noise at times. But when it is quiet, like now, I can empty my mind and totally accept things as they are, totally.

I sleep, eat, read and meditate on a narrow (22") concrete "bunk." The mattress is two inches of foam padding wrapped in nylon reinforced plastic. It is six inches wider than the "bunk" and ten inches shorter than me. There is no pillow, and one thin dirty and torn wool blanket. It is uncomfortable, but I don't mind. I did not come here to sleep.