America's Most Wanted

This morning a woman came to my cell door and told me that America's Most Wanted (the TV show) wanted to interview me. She then asked me to sign a form saying whether I agreed to be interviewed, or refused. I automatically refused, of course, like I always have to such requests. I also told her I would not sign anything - there was no reason I should sign. She responded by repeating my statements back to me, "So, you refuse the interview, and you won't sign the form", as confirmation, presumably (I think she was surprised that I would refuse at all). After I reaffirmed what I had just told her she said, "okay", and the guard with her closed the bean-slot and then they both left. So I climbed back under my covers and tried to go back to sleep. I was having an interesting dream about a nontraditional Santa Claus before she woke me up.

A few moments later, as I laid there curled on my side beneath the blankets trying to get warm so I could go back to sleep and maybe finishing my dream, I overheard one of the guards mocking my refusal to agree to the interview. The woman who had come to my door and asked me to sign her form (some admin-type) laughed along. Then I heard the guard key the door to the SHU to let her out.

But why did they mock me? I don't understand.

Psychological Rape

What is rape? My Webster dictionary defines rape as, 1: a carrying away by force. When someone breaks into your home and takes what they want, you feel raped. when someone puts a gun to your head and demands your wallet, you feel raped. And when the guards handcuff me, enter my cell, and take my extra books, I feel raped.

I realize that most people think I have no right to complain, and I'm not complaining, at least not about loosing my books. My only complaint is against my own ignorant feeling of being raped. I shouldn't feel that way, but I do. If I thought it would help I would gladly let them have all my books, and paper, and even personal pictures and pens, everything, if it would prevent me from having to feel so violated the next time they decide to come take something from me. But I've tried this in the past (getting rid of everything they could possibly find an excuse for "confiscating") and no matter what I surrender, the system always manages to find something to take away; it has to, because that's all it knows how to do.

In fact, experienced prisoners have learned that the best defense against these "shake downs" is to keep some sort of nuisance contraband in your cell for them to take when they come to take something. This usually works, because they don't feel like they're doing their job unless they take something. So if you leave them nothing to take they'll take something you don't want them to take. Technically, everything is contraband for one reason or another, which means they can always find something to take, and usually do (some guards, the more mature and experienced guards, don't feel so gung ho about "doing their job", but these types are the exception, not the rule). So, I leave little "gifts" for the guards to take, but sometimes they take things I don't want them to take anyway; things that having meaning to me, like a good book that was hard to come by, even one I was two-thirds of the way through reading (like today).

It was this kind of psychological rape that drove me insane with rage all those years ago the last time I was in prison. Getting violently raped up my ass on numerous occasions by other inmates when I was still just a kid all those years ago ended up seeming like a pleasurable experience by comparison (though it certainly didn't seem pleasurable at the time). The persistant psychological violations that the system calls "rehabilitation" and "corrections" ends up becoming a deep emotional sore that is extremely slow to heal; if it ever gets the chance!

I told my attorneys shortly after my arrest this time (in 2005) that they'd be doing me a huge favor if they just let the system kill me (by death sentence) since the prospect of spending the 30 or so years remaining of my life as a prisoner waiting every day to be violated at the guards which was a nightmare I had no desire to relive all over again. And yet here I am. It's hard for me not to be mad at my attorneys for putting me through this personal hell, but I know they're not to blame; nobody is, not even the guards. But that doesn't make it feel any less like rape.

The Hard Way

Over the last couple of weeks I have been interviewed by four different psych doctors, two psychiatrists, and two psychologists, three I have seen before, one not, and two I have seen many times over the years since my arrest in July of 2005. They have all been asked to shed their professional opinion on the question of whether or not I was "competent to waive my appeal" back in 2008 when I did so.

I told them all the same thing I've been telling them for the last eight years; my "competency" is the wrong question they should be asking. It has no meaning (according to the so-called legal definition) for me, and would have no meaning to them either if they only understood, which is to say, experienced, what I experienced in 2005 that caused me to bring Shasta home and turned myself in. It is the same thing I have been trying to convey with this blog as well.

I don't expect anyone to accept my word on faith about what happened back then. My only hope is that they will simply question the basic assumptions that are preventing them - preventing all of us - from discovering and experiencing the truth for ourselves.

Today's visitor, a professor and brain researcher from Penn State, asked me to sign a release form allowing him to use my case and information in a study designed to determine if the minds (brains, specifically) are any different in "Capital Case defendants" than other "average" (a research pseudonym for "normal") people.

I agreed to sign the release, but only after taking at least ten minutes to try to explain why the study was asking the wrong question as well (see "Serial Killer Fence" entry). I signed even though I strongly disagree with the direction such studies are trying to go. My rational for this (if you can call it rational at all) is that they must learn for themselves, as I did, the hard way. The easy way is a path that can only be seen in hindsight, but never traversed methinks.

The Smell of Seattle

Today I took a little trip into downtown Seattle for the first time in almost ten years. The thing that struck me first was the pleasant smell. When I live in downtown Seattle I never realized it even had a distinct smell. But now, after having been gone for so long, the smell was so distinct and identifable to me that as soon as I smelled it I knew I would have known where I was even with my eyes closed.

I was in chains on a Federal Marshal's Service bus, of course, but I sat next to a large window on the bus that afforded a good view of the city as we drove in from the south and then through downtown to the new Federal courthouse. There were several other prisoners on the bus, being transported from FDC (in Seatac) to the courthouse for their court hearings. I was kept separate in the front caged off portion of the bus along with one overweight but pretty female prisoner. We didn't talk though, since we were told to sit in opposite corners of the cage and I was preoccupied with looking out the window at what I have long considered the most beautiful city in the US of America.

The distinct smell was like coffee and donuts, but subtle, and mixed with the aroma of evergreens and the slightly musky smell of decomposing pine needles. Imagine a coffee shop in the forest, but in the distance so you know it's there but aren't overwhelmed by the odor. That's what Seattle smells like.

I was being transported there not for a court hearing (my hearings are currently all in Boise, Idaho), but for a court ordered four hour long video taped psych-evaluation. The evaluation was being performed by a Canadian college professor who was hired by the prosecutor as an expert on legal competency (he'd apparently written two books on the subject). In other words, yet another "hired gun", as the lawyers say. My own "defense" attorney was watching, along with the prosecutor from Boise, via the video feed from an adjacent room. Afterwards my attorney told me that he thought the interview, "went well", which I think means that I sounded crazy. Oh well.

Besides the smell of downtown Seattle, the other thing that struck me was the number of images (buildings, stretches of woods next to the road, unique over passes, etc...) that seemed to come straight out of dreams I have had recently. T don't think there is really anything "synchronicitous" (as Jung might say) about this, as much as just my own brain recalling long forgotten details from when I lived in Seattle many years ago. It's still a very interesting phenomenon though.

And now I'm back in the SHU (single cell) in Seatac, reflecting on a rather enjoyable day; and relishing the memory of the smell of Seattle.

Seatac or Bust

A little more than two weeks ago I had a court hearing in Boise Idaho. The only purpose of the hearing was to appoint counsel for the upcoming appelate court-ordered competency hearing. The lawyer that appeared at the hearing two weeks ago to be appointed told the judge that he had a scheduling conflict with the proposed date of the new competency hearing, which was scheduled for early November. So, he asked that it be pushed back to December.

The judge said he wanted no more delays (though he'd already pushed the hearing back several months for the prosecutor without even consulting the defense). Apparently a few more weeks was too much to ask. So he continued the appointment hearing for two weeks, to be reconvined then to give the public defenders a chance to find a different lawyer.

Monday (three days ago) was the continuation hearing. I was flown by private jet from Terre Haute to Boise on both occasions. For the first hearing, that lasted 15 minutes and accomplished nothing, I was gone from my cell in Terre Haute for just over 30 hours. They flew me to Boise the day before, then flew me right back to Terre Haute after the 9:30 am hearing. For the second hearing I was flown to Boise on Friday, spent the weekend in Ada County Jail, then, by complete surprize, flown to Seattle via twin engine Beachcraft and taken to the Seatac Federal Detention Center (FDC) where I now sit.

It seems I have been ordered to remain here until the competency hearing, which the judge finally pushed back to January 8th, 2013, before appointing the same lawyer that appeared at that first hearing. So, now I'm stuck here in Seatac in the SHU (Special Housing Unit, a.k.a. 'The Hole") for the next seven months, presumably so I can be more readily flown back and forth for pointless hearings like these last two (an hour and a half by Beachcraft instead of three hours by lear-jet).

I don't mind. It gives me time to catch up on some reading, and work on the Fifthnail.

Musical Cells

This morning I got to play the musical cells game. But it wasn't very fun because nobody got stuck without a cell and had to go home. :(

It seems that every 21 days inmates here in the SHU (Special Housing Unit, a.k.a. the hole) get moved to a random different cell (for "security" reasons, of course). The cell I just got moved to is a lot dirtier than the one I was in before, but other than that it's actually a lot better. This cell has a new mattress that's a lot softer than the old one (well, okay, it's really only a little softer, but it feels a lot softer after so much tossing and turning every ten minutes on the old one because it actually starts to hurt to lay in one position too long - especially because of how boney I am), and the new mattress even has a built in pillow which isn't the greatest, but it's certainly better than no pillow at all, which is what I had before.

The old cell was also just on the other side of the regular population inmate basketball court. It seems the backboard was attached to the wall just outside the cell, so I'd hear loud banging all day and in the evenings, and sometimes even late at night after lights out when the guards get bored and decide to shoot some hoops (and mess with my head perhaps, since they all knew I was in that cell).

I also got a cell with a stool this time, so I can actual have someplace to sit and eat, or write, as I'm doing now. And, I can see a little bit out the window to where the paint has thinned out some. So all in all, today is a good day.

It Never Ends

I am sitting on the floor of this concrete cell with two blankets and a sheet wrapped around me to keep warm.

The vent noisily blows cold air.

It is well past lights out.

The only light comes in through the small security window in the steel door.

I am sitting in the light so I can see.

I can't sleep.

And, I can't wake up.

I am thinking about God, the universe, reality...

The guard shines a flashlight through the window, sees me sitting on the floor writing, and is gone to the next cell in less than a half second.

I want to have a lucid dream so I can talk to someone.

I want to know who, what, when, where, and why I am.

I want to be free, from life.

I want to cry, but I can't.

I don't know why.

I want to die, but I can't.

I don't know why.

It never ends.

It never ends.

It never ends.

The pain never ends.

The beauty... never ends.