Letters
"I finally made it to population..."
I have a job!!! I’m teaching other inmates how to read 'n write. You won’t
believe how many can’t do this. So I work from 8am to 11am - then in the afternoon
from 1pm - 4pm I go to schooll’n then from 6pm.
It’s a huge difference being here and on death row. Now I can walk without handcuffs
and strip searching only on occasion. So it’s a big relief for me, sort of taste of
freedom and the best of it - I can take a shower as many times as I please!! I feel
lost at times after being on death row for 13 years. This life style came at the right
time, I mean I can say I feel better for a change!
The teaching job doesn’t pay any money tho’ - just a volunteer but at least I
can exercise and get my memory back, slowly but surely, one step at a time.
The dorm (Not cell) I live in has No bars of any kind. Matter of fact, I’ve a big
window to look outside at the landscape. I’ve a key to open my door. No TV anymore
but I’ve air conditioning. I share with a mate - it’s two bunks, one on top of
the other like army style and it has springs, which I find refreshing after been sleeping
on a metal box for 13 long years. I have - two real chairs and a table to write - so now I
can sit and write like a normal person would do.
But in those 13 years I was back there (because every day on my way to school I can see
dearth roe) I learned a great deal of survival, self-preservation, mind control. All these
things together make me tough’n my will power can only get stronger by each’n
every day that’s ahead of me. Now I can use knowledge, which I learnt from those days
on death row, because death row has been a school for me. I can help many people, new
arrivals prisoners, to have a much better understanding what doing time really is.
But my journey doesn’t stop here because I know it’s a loop hole in my sentence.
What they did to me was wrong and I’m gonna keep fighting as long as I’m in
prison for my precious freedom!
On weekends I don’t do too much work tho’ but to get all my stuff in order. For
a cha ge I don’t have to wash my clothes any more, I take them to the laundry. I can
wash and change every day, which’s nice’n decent.
I attend church, I mean I get to walk to the chapel, sit on the bench with all the mates
and see live the preachers face after so many years seeing the chapel on TV (because
it’s close circuit camera in there). That (first) evening I couldn’t help myself
but tears came down my chin, knowing that the only link, between chapel and death row.
‘N I got up. Turned around facing the camera and waved many times, saying hello to
all my friends on the row. I felt sad for not having them with me … and (them) being
way behind to being treated as a human being, sad but true.
But it’s time to start healing wounds and let time take care of the scars. I must go
on with my like and keep focused on my priorities. It’s time to put to practice
everything I’ve learned in 13 years of bitterness. I know life can only get better
for me, I know I’ve to take one step at a time, now I have options, mayge not too
many, but at least I have some.
Maurico Beltran 113995,
UCI,
PO Box 221-763,
Raiford,
Florida.
"I read a story..."
I read a story not long ago about a young woman working at a wildlife refuge. She made the
mistake of reaching her arm into the cage of a newly arrived tiger. She only wanted to pet
it.
The tiger purred, then began to lick her arm. Involuntarily, she tried to yank her arm
from the cage. Instinctively, the tiger clamped down and tore her arm off.
Recently, here at the Terrell Unit, a 78 year-old volunteer chaplain stuck his arm inside
the cell of an inmate (maybe to comfort him?) and the inmate grabbed his arm and begun
cutting on it. I don’t know what could have prompted this action nor do I condone it.
Maybe it did it instinctively?
It’s 2.52 a.m. and the officer just came by with our sack meals. When asked if I
wanted to eat, I replied, ‘yeah’. I put my light on and stood there waiting for
him to open my food slot and slide my bag in as they normally do. Instead of getting my
sack, I was told, ‘Okay, now you have to go and sit on your bunk.’ I told him to
forget about it. He replied that I might as well get used to it because that’s the
way it’s going to be from now on.
Apparently, we’re supposed to sit on our bunks until our sacks have been placed on
the slot. After the officer has stepped a safe distance away then, and only then, are we
allowed to come and retrieve our sacks, retreat to the dark recesses of our cells and
hungrily devour our long awaited rations of food.
I can afford to decline a meal for now because I have commissary. I can forgo the
suffering through the indignity of being treated like a wild animal or even a pet that has
to perform tricks in order to get a meal. If I ‘Sit!’ and ‘Stay!’,
will they soon ask me to ‘Roll over and play dead!’?
I suppose when I run out of food supply, I too will ‘do tricks’ in order to get
the food that they will have for me. I have to eat, right? I have to have food to survive.
Survival is a basic animal instinct.
Since we arrived here at Terrell Unit, we have been treated as sub-human. Seldom addressed
directly by the guards and totally restricted from any physical interaction with another
prisoner. We’ve been treated like animals at the zoo, corralled and herded from one
holding to the next for either recreation, shower or on rare occasion, visits.
When you lock men up and treat them like animals it is only inevitable that some will
begin to act like animals. As the debate over capital punishment increases, we have more
people speaking out on our behalf. It hurts the movement when a prisoner does something as
what was done to the chaplain.
But I am reminded of the incident of the young woman and the tiger. Interviewed later, she
pleaded for the tiger’s life as the State of Colorado debated on whether to destroy
the animal. She said ,’To kill him now would make everything I’ve done and gone
through meaningless.’
Please, continue to fight for us all.
James V Allridge 111, #870
Charles Terrell Unit,
12002 FM 350 S,
Livingston,
TX 77351.
"What is...?"
*WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER?
It is the premeditated killing of a human being.
To wit - a murder.
*WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?
It is the scheduled execution of a human being by the government.
To wit - a murder.
I am confused. Aren’t these two definitions basically the same? The difference is the
first one is an illegal act according to the law. The second one is a legal act under the
law.
How can this be? Who made these laws? Who upholds these laws? That is simple - the people
of the United States of America. A civilized country; a country where people are proud to
live; a country who takes care of its own; a country that still puts its people to death
and is proud of it! A country that cheers at its executions.
This just doesn’t make any sense. How can the same group of citizens say murder is
wrong but executions are right? In their eyes it just depends on who is doing the killing.
I say they are both wrong!
Capital punishment needs to be abolished. It is not a safe method of punishment. It is a
cruel and unusual form of punishment.
Since the death penalty was re-instated in 1976, over 80 individuals have been exonerated
and released from death rows all over the USA
Illinois, alone, has released more men from death row than it has executed. Thus, a
moratorium was issued on executions until a study of the system, in that State, could be
completed. Other states need to follow suit!
Capital punishment is administered unfairly. If you happened to live in a large county, in
your state then the chances of you receiving the death penalty is higher than if you live
in a county that doesn’t have the resources for a capital trial.
With the Public Defender you aren’t going to have expert testimony and related tests
due to the lack of funds in their budget. However, the prosecution has all of the states
resources at their disposal.
The USA is still one of the few countries left that executes individuals who are minors at
the time of their alleged crime.
Innocent people end up on death row because the prosecution, also possibly the judge and
police, have an agenda of its own. The state wants another feather in its hat come
election time.
Because of society’s rush to judgement, innocent people may be executed.
Some say that this would never happen - how do they know? DNA testing wasn’t
available a few years ago to help determine innocence. I hear all the time - an eye for an
eye. You certainly know that a Christian didn’t say that because s/he would know that
was in Old Testament times. We are now in New Testament times!
The death penalty does not deter crime.
The death penalty does not make our streets safer.
How can the USA speak about human rights, in this country as well as all over the world,
when it still violates a human being by taking their life from them?
How can we expect other countries to respect us when we kill people to teach them not to
kill?
What did Jesus say at the cross when He was being executed? ‘Forgive them Father
because they know not what they do.” I have to agree that any society doesn’t
know what it is doing when it kills a human being. Murder is wrong, no matter who does it.
The killing must stop now!!
Robin Lee Row 40171,
PWCC Unit 4,
Box 6049,
Pocatello,
Idaho 83205.
"Tolerance is..."
Tolerance is nurtured by love. In this context it means to bestow the sweet fruit of love
and good wishes even when confronted with difficulties, negativity and ill feeling. To
develop the virtue of tolerance, one must practice love and self restraint constantly. You
have to be familiar with the law of cause and effect and the inevitability of change. You
must be a detached lover and observer, develop love, experience self-respect and the
virtues of humility. No matter how angry other people make you, no matter how much they
defame and insult you, be tolerant, loving and speak sweetly but little.
A quality necessary to exercise tolerance is endurance. It demonstrates patience with
unlimited elasticity and total control of the senses. Tolerance cannot be quantified for
there is no room for failure. Failure should be considered as experience to delayed
success. Tolerance means to endure all difficulties with love and humility. Each person
has their own personality and qualities. If you always remember this - then the power of
tolerance becomes easier to articulate and demonstrate. The Supreme is tolerance
personified - sop much defamation and blasphemy have been tolerated and yet s/he is
merciful loving and offers salvation to us all.
To my brothers and sisters everywhere - I close with these words:
The branches of a tree may shade the light from our eyes
A flower may hide its beauty from us
But it cannot hide love from our hearts.
Steve Mungroo,
103 Frederick Street,
Port of Spain,
Trinidad & Tobago.
"The Hurricane"
The hit movie, ‘The Hurricane’, based on the roller-coaster life of boxer, Rubin
‘Hurricane’ Carter, is an uplifting story of the ultimate release of a man who
served nearly 20 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a triple murder.
But it probably couldn’t happen today? Because - thanks to the courts, congress and
President Clinton - a person imprisoned under similar circumstances would more than likely
be left there! S/he would not be able to get their case reviewed. Judges and politicians,
anxious ton get tough on crime, have sharply reduced access to the appeals process that
Carter used.
Carter, a middleweight contender and a black man with a criminal record, was twice
convicted of the 1966 murder of three white men in a Patterson, New Jersey bar. The first
conviction relied on the testimony of two white men caught robbing a nearby factory. At
the urging of prosecutors, who promised to let them go free, the two men changed their
original story and implicated Carter. However, when eventually the facts were exposed
Carter’s conviction was overturned. The state courts upheld the second conviction but
Carter was able to ask a federal judge for Habeas Corpus, an ancient common-law writ by
which an independent judge can review whether the prisoner of the state is being held
legally. Habeas Corpus came about as a remedy against unjust imprisonment and was
enshrined in English law in 1679, protected by the founding father in the US Constitution.
Carter’s lawyers could ask for Habeas Corpus - subsequently a federal judge reversed
the second conviction: the overzealous prosecutors had hidden the fact that their key
witness had failed a lie-detector test and they had been allowed to claim, without
evidence, that the killings were motivated by racial hatred. Carter’s lawyers, legal
scholars and the judge, who issued the 1685 reversal, say that such a reversal could not
happen today. In 1996 congress passed, and Clinton signed, a law raising a bar against
Federal Judges acting in such cases: even if there have been violations of constitutional
procedures designed to ensure a fair trial.
As the Nation becomes tougher on crime and particularly violent offences it appears that
the crime rate has fallen. However, this is no reason to imprison the innocent and leave
them without recourse. Politicians, eager to demonstrate their desire to ‘lock
‘em up and throw away the key’, have created a barrier to protecting the
innocent from the unscrupulous police and prosecutors.
The ‘Hurricane’ must not go down as a quaint tribute to a precious liberty that
has been lost forever. Instead it should be a prescription to fix the mistakes of the 1996
law!
Stanley Smith, #430892
Estelle Unit,
Huntsville,
Texas 77320.
"Huntsville..."
I am stationed in Huntsville, only ten minutes from where executions are performed, where
a life is taken as a reward for murder.
Yet, one of the biggest crimes in America today is the oppression of the poor: since DNA
testing, for those who could not afford a lawyer to assure them of a fair trial, came into
in circulation the number of prisoners released has been dramatic. So this makes me wonder
just how many more innocent victims we4re executed before DNA was developed in 1994!
So far, the system has refused to acknowledge that something is terribly wrong. The guilty
are easy to convict but to free the innocent is the real challenge. The system is only
interested in obtaining a conviction, whether the person is innocent or guilty. We’ve
just reached 1.8 million citizens incarcerated and the numbers are going up every day, as
more and more prisons are being built.
I see a war on the people as they sit back and let it take place. It’s not the New
World order that’s in affect but the government in its corrupt state of advance.
It’s high time, we as people of all colours, race and national origins, came together
for peace, people’s needs and set ourselves from was trouble.
Anthony Richard, #623054
Estelle Unit,
254 FM 3478,
Huntsville,
Texas 773054.
"We are mourning..."
We are mourning Dr. Stefanie Locker-Beland who passed away suddenly on 10th August 2000.
Steffi was a friend to many - she worked tirelessly against the death penalty with never
ending energy and major personal commitment.
She tried to move mountains, to make the impossible possible and to give hope. She was a
voice for those who never had been listened to and a light in the darkness of injustice
and despair.
During her long standing dedication to Amnesty International and her incessant work as the
speaker of the board of The German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Steffi gave
everything. We will never forget her confidence, her strength and her love, and her
visions will be a message for us.
German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,
Amnesty International - Germany,
GR.1259.