Test Results

The IT students, 27 of them, sat for the National A+ certification exam last week.  That the test held inside, here at Lunenburg, was because of the efforts of our school principal and the community college.  This national exam is normally only given at authorized testing centers.  It took a great deal of coaxing and advanced preparations to get the prison facilities approved (and the OK of DOC representatives all the way up to the director).

Each day, for four straight days, in groups of seven (six the last day), the guys sat for the four hour test (two separate sessions; two parts). 

The results:  three full passes; four partial passes; twelve tests within ten points of passing.  Were the results all we wanted?  No.  But, these guys – many of whom have never used a computer – take classes without hands on examination of computer components (a major part of the IT certification is repair and service); they miss classes during lockdowns.  They work on their classes without daily access to laptops and no access to the internet.  They are seeking a college education under conditions few students deal with.

Only three may have received certification – this test period – but 27 succeeded. 

Cal

There’s a young, skinny kid in here who goes by the name Cal.  He’s 22 but might as well be 12.  He’s immature and very naïve.  I took an interest in Cal early last January.  We were in English class and a paper was due.  Cal was asleep in his chair, leaned back against the wall.  The chair slid out and he crashed to the floor.  The teacher was startled, inquired if he was alright then noted “I didn’t receive your paper”.  Cal fumbled around and then sheepishly said “I forgot it”. 

We took a ten minute break and – I’m still not sure why – I pulled up beside him and let him have it.  “You need to get your head out of your ass.  You’re getting a free education.  Blow this chance and you’ll be back.”  I was furious that this skinny kid who looked remarkably like Waldo (of “Where’s Waldo” fame), who was back for his second trip to prison, was sleeping in class and couldn’t remember to bring an assignment with him.

Later that afternoon I felt badly about calling him out.  I approached him in the building, told him I was sorry I lost my cool, and that I should have handled my remarks differently.  “You don’t have to apologize.  You’re the first guy ever cared enough to tell me to shape up.”  Since that time he’s been hanging around me, telling me about his life, his future plans.  As Big S and DC have pointed out, I’m playing the role of father for this goofy kid.

I look at him and know he’s had a lousy life.  He’s been beaten up, picked on, and abused his entire life and, I fear, never had anyone care about him.  One afternoon he told me “I’ve been degraded every way you can.  They can’t do anything to me that hasn’t already been done.”  He was in a beef with a gang member.  I knew the guy and asked him to lay off and he agreed.

Cal is like an awful lot of young guys in here.  They come from lousy homes where no one cared about them.  They are abused and neglected.  They turn to drugs (using and selling) and eventually move to other stuff (Cal committed credit card fraud on the computer after being released his first time for selling drugs).  If he was at a higher level prison he’d be victimized sexually.  Nothing in prison has been changing his life.  So I come along and befriend this kid. Does it matter?  Who knows?  But I’ve learned this the past few years:  you have to care.  I’m accused quite frequently by well-meaning friends in and out of caring too much.  Maybe that’s how I do my time; maybe that’s how I compensate for being separated from my sons.  Prison is no place for young, non-violent felons.  Kids like Cal deserve better.  You want to punish him for breaking the law?  Ok, but do it so he’ll become a productive citizen.  Prison doesn’t do that.

Guest Blog – The Will to Walk (Jay)

I’ve asked some of the guys in here to contribute blogs.  “Write about anything you want”, I told them.  This medium – the blog – fascinates the guys.  Whether there is one reader, or a thousand, the guys believe somehow my blog is reaching someone, maybe changing someone’s mind or heart.  When I started this blog a year and a half ago it was to give me something to do.  That it’s a source of communication with the outside world and hope to dozens of men in this place was beyond my original intention.

I write blogs to tell my story.  What I’ve discovered is it’s not my story.  It is the story of literally anyone who’s screwed up, suffered unforeseen consequences, and tries to do right and live with hope.  And I’ve learned that is the story of most of the people I meet in here. 

“Jay”, my guest blogger, is one of those guys.  Just turning 40, he’s been incarcerated since 1996.  He shot and killed a man during a drug deal gone bad.  He was selling and the “two customers” tried to rob him, shooting him twice.  He returned fire, killing one man.

Jay is a leader in our college building.  His earliest release will come in 2024; still, he pays his own way for college (murderers are precluded from Federal grants).  He’s thoughtful and well read.  Five years ago he began tithing (one tenth of his factory salary) to an orphanage in Kenya for children whose parents died of AIDS. 

The famous British playwright Oscar Wilde said, “What seems to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”.  Meeting guys like Jay bear that out for me.

In 1981, at the tender age of ten, I found myself in the fight of my life.  Unbeknownst to my family and myself, I would be diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called “Astrocytoma”.  Through an uncountable number of prayers and superb team of doctors, I would overcome this life changing ailment to regain a clean bill of health.  Welcome to my story of tragedy and triumph.

The Will to Walk

With everything in me, I fought to take that first step.  I can remember my mom saying “Come on, John, you can do it”, with that piercing voice.  With that, and the motivation to play basketball again, I took that first step.

Life was good for me in 1981.  I had a loving family of two brothers and three sisters along with a jump shot that would not quit.  It was late fall in Baltimore when my basketball team, the “Calloway Tigers” were undefeated.  We were in the fight of our lives.  Down by two points with the clock running out, my coach, Mr. Davis, yelled “John-John to the basket”.  With hoop-dreams of basketball gods Magic, Bird, Dr. J. and a future of my own, I dribbled past the first defender and moved toward the rim.  As I left my feet to take the shot I didn’t know this jumper would be the beginning of a life-changing event.  Crashing down on the defender’s foot, my ankle twisted as I fell to the floor.  “Count the basket”, the ref yelled.  As I lay there on the floor looking up at my teammates, I could tell something was seriously wrong with my ankle.

I hobbled to school the following day with one thing on my mind; the loss the team suffered because of my injury.  I had left the game and we were unable to come back.  As I entered my classroom, Mrs. Bloom my homeroom teacher asked, “John what’s going on with your leg?”  I answered, “I hurt my ankle playing basketball”.  Later, Mrs. Bloom sent me to see the school nurse.  Upon examination, the nurse informed me that I needed a test for scoliosis (curvature of the spine).  A notification letter was sent to my mom revealing the medical exam results.  Surprisingly, the diagnosis for scoliosis was positive.

Kernan Hospital is a place that specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries.  Mom and I arrived early one morning and were greeted by wall-to-wall people in the waiting area.  “Sign in, take a number and a seat”, said the nurse.  Scanning the room from side to side, I noticed people with all sorts of injures.  “John Hinson” announced the nurse, “please follow me”.

As we made our way through the crowd at the end of the hallway the doctor stood waiting to greet us.  “Hello” said Dr. Johnson.  “I’ll be performing a variety of test on you today, such as x-rays, c-scans and MRI’s”.  After all the tests were performed, Dr. Johnson returned to the room with a blank look across his face as he said, “Ms. Hinson, I hate to inform you and your son with this bad news, but we have located a tumor on John’s spine.”

“John, welcome to Johns Hopkins Hospital”, I’m Dr. Smith.  “I’ll be one of your doctors during your stay with us.”  Nervousness started to set in as more doctors and nurses filled the room.  From my hospital bed, I watched as my mom began to cry.  I remember saying to myself, “Mom, don’t cry, I’ll be alright.”

As the anesthesia wore off, a cold hand rubbing my head awakened me.  “Hello, my baby”, Mom said.  “How do you feel?”  In the hours that followed, Mom would share the news with me about the surgery.  The doctors advised that my chance of a successful surgery was 50/50; not only was this percentage given in reference to removing the tumor but also in me regaining the ability to walk again.  The news crushed me.  I could not imagine never playing basketball again.

After the surgery, I was awakened by the soft voice of my mom saying, “John-John, can you hear me?”  There I lay on my stomach crying from the pain caused by the surgery.  Hours turned into days and days into weeks.  One day, as I attempted to sit up, I was unable to turn over.  I asked my mom why I couldn’t move my legs.  To my surprise, her response was simple “Fight, Baby, Fight”.  Those words defined my will to walk.  I may not move as swiftly as before, nor run or walk without a severe limp, but I am able to play the game I have always loved, “Basketball”. 

The RH Factor

When I was at the Henrico jail I became friends with a young black man named Corey.  Corey was 24, a former gang leader, and back in jail for a simple drug possession charge.  He was waiting for admittance to Henrico’s drug court program, an alternative to incarceration.

Corey was an interesting kid.  He was bright, well-read, and extremely polite.  He and I would talk each day, for hours some days, about politics, history, religion.  Corey was a loner with the exception of dealing with me, and feared by a good number of the young Richmond inmates.

Every day, Corey would do 500 pushups in his cell, then sit lotus position for an hour meditating.  He left the gang life before his last arrest and had visions of completing drug court and going back to school to finish his degree.

On the day I was served with divorce papers I lay on my bunk and covered my face so no one could see me cry.  I was as distraught and full of despair as I’d ever been in my life. I was alone and felt completely hopeless.  I don’t know why, but later that afternoon I walked down to Corey’s cell.  He was on his bunk reading.  “Mr. Larry.  What’s up?”  I entered his cell, leaned on the sink and in a choking voice using all my willpower to not breakdown, told him my wife had filed for divorce and I had decided to not contest it.  I felt like a fool, I told him.  I’d voluntarily signed everything over to her 30 days earlier against the advice of my lawyer, my therapist, and numerous friends; all of whom said “she’ll drop you as soon as you give her the assets”.

Corey looked at me and simply asked “do you love her?”  When I said yes, he told me I did the right thing.  He then reached under his mattress and pulled out a book.  “Read this”, he said to me, “and remember you’re too smart ant too decent to give up.  You can come back.”

The book he handed me was by Dr. Charles Stanley, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Atlanta and it contained his message that God had a plan for each of us.  He never gave up on us.  The beginning of the book detailed Dr. Stanley’s own experience with divorce.  That night I read the book cover to cover.  I began listening to Dr. Stanley’s radio broadcasts Sunday evenings at the jail.  When I arrived at this facility and purchased a TV I began watching his church service every Sunday morning at 6:00.  Corey’s conversation with me that day and the book he gave me may have, quite literally, saved my life.  I’ve aged in this place and known deep despair, but I return often to what Corey and I talked about that day and Dr. Stanley’s book.

I thought about that this week – about enduring and fighting back – as a number of the young guys came up to check on me after learning of my brother’s death.  These guys reached out to me because; as one young kid told me “you cared about us when no one else did”.  It reminded me of one of my favorite movies, “The Natural”.  Robert Redford portrays Roy Hobbs, an aging baseball player who suddenly appears on the scene and leads a perennial loser to the pennant.  Hobbs, however, has a secret.  Years earlier, as the rising young hitter in baseball, he’d had an encounter with a woman.  She shot him, leaving him for dead in a hotel.

I think a good deal about Roy Hobbs.  You come to prison and you’re written off.  People let their real feelings show.  Love isn’t really love.  Friendship, loyalty don’t matter.  It’s as though you are shot and left for dead.

But then, you try to be yourself, give a damn about guys who others have written off, and occasionally it crosses your mind good can come of all this.  I felt that the other day talking to the guys after my brother’s death.  And I thought back to my conversations with Corey.

And Roy Hobbs?  He hits the game winning homerun and then left for home, back to the woman who really loved him and the son he never knew he had.  Of course that’s a movie.  They’re always happy endings in movies.

Amanda and Virginia

It seems as though Amanda Knox’s struggle and eventual overturning of her murder conviction by an Italian appellate court still has the country’s imagination.  How could such a cute, “all-American” girl get railroaded by a prosecutor who felt “in his gut” she was guilty when the evidence said likewise?  Even more mysterious was an appellate process that actually allowed the prosecutor to argue for an increased sentence.  When Amanda stood in court awaiting the judge’s ruling there was the possibility that her twelve year sentence would turn into life.

“Talking heads” (those banal, self-described experts who pop up daily on “news shows”, not the ‘80’s rock band) decried the Italian justice system.  And, a few noted the appearance of a large crucifix behind the appellate judges, peering down on the defendant as the court’s decision was rendered (I wondered, as I saw that, if the Italians ever thought of actually applying the “true” justice of calvary and forgiving her for any sins she may have committed).  We Americans are an interesting lot.  We think our system is somehow superior until, that is; we get caught up in its wheels and get slowly grounded down by the arcane unfairness of the American judicial system.

Take Virginia’s criminal appellate process.  Suppose you’re a criminal defendant, unschooled in the law, poor and therefore unable to hire counsel.  You transfer from the county jail to the custody of DOC and end up at their receiving unit where you meet another inmate who tells you about an evidentiary ruling that your attorney (court appointed) overlooked.  You immediately hand draft a motion with the trial court to re-open your case.

Sorry, you lose.  Virginia law holds that once a defendant is transferred to DOC custody that trial court loses jurisdiction over the case.  The inmate can’t get his case re-opened.  Simply put, there is no court that can hear this case.

What, you might ask, happens if the man or woman is actually innocent?  You mean like Thomas Haynesworth who spent 17 years in prison for rapes DNA conclusively proves he didn’t commit?  Yet, as I write this blog, Haynesworth – released 6 months ago by a conditional pardon that commuted his sentence but did not exonerate him – still waits for the Virginia Court of Appeals to overturn his convictions and rule him “innocent”.  One of the reasons for the delay:  Virginia law permits “extraordinary appeals” based on writs of actual innocence.  However, the evidence establishing your innocence must be discovered and presented “within a year of conviction”. 

And then there’s the entire habeas corpus process.  The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution specifically guarantees all criminal defendants facing jail time, the right to the “effective assistance of counsel”.  That right is one of the fundamental bedrock constitutional guarantees of our system.  Yet today it is as difficult to negotiate the meaning of that clause as a treasure map written in Aramaic.

First, there are numerous procedural prerequisites (filing in state court for example) before you ever reach Federal Court.  Then, even if you have overcome the procedural hurdles you have to meet the “test” set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Strickland v Washington:  1) the attorney didn’t meet an objective standard of effectiveness and      2) had the client had an effective lawyer a different result would be reached.  How can you ever prove the second part of the test?  You very seldom can which is why each year thousands of inmate cases are thrown out.  Unfortunately, habeas actions are the only recourse inmates have once their appeals are exhausted.  Does effective assistance of counsel truly exist?  Sadly, no.

And, Amanda at least had public opinion on her side.  Americans overwhelmingly think prosecutors and police are there to “protect and serve” and play fair.  A defendant who has been convicted had the extra burden of establishing his innocence.  We presume the law wouldn’t have wrongly convicted anyone even though we see otherwise.

Amanda Knox’s family spent their life savings carrying the message of her mistreatment at the hands of the Italian judiciary.  They nearly bankrupted themselves getting justice.  I ask you how many innocent men and women rot in American prisons who deserve justice?  How many were over-sentenced and deserve another chance at freedom?  Tell me, would Amanda Knox be free today if she’d been convicted in Virginia?

In Memoriam (MAB)

Wednesday morning at 8:00 I was called into the counselor’s office.  “You need to call home”, Ms. G told me.  I knew immediately why.  It was a call I’d anticipated having to make for months.  It was a call no one ever wants to make especially from in here.

My brother, my only sibling, passed away at 5:50 am in the Duke University Hospital Oncology wing.  My Mom and Dad were with him as he took his last breath.  He would have been 49 this November.  He leaves a wife and two daughters.

Mark did not have an easy life and he was not an easy person to get along with.  For much of our life growing up he lived in my shadow.  School came easily for me; I made friends.  Mark had learning disabilities and a caustic personality that rubbed people the wrong way.  And, bullying isn’t some modern phenomena.  Kids were cruel in the 60’s and 70’s and Mark was always the kid that got picked on.

I didn’t let people pick on Mark, but I was, honestly, embarrassed by him.  And I was a lousy brother.  He deserved more from me.  That he and I weren’t close, that for much of his life he resented me was no great surprise.  He didn’t know what I was going through.  He just saw his older brother, successful in school, successful in a law career, married to a beautiful woman and thought “this guy gets all the breaks”. 

And Mark and I grew further apart.  There were horrible fights.  He brought out a side of me I didn’t know existed, a rage and a disgust that made me look at myself in the mirror.

Mark was diagnosed with cancer years ago.  My initial reaction?  Of course he was.  After all, he had tried every religion, every lifestyle, done anything he could to fit in, why would sickness surprise me?  Around that time, my own life was coming apart.  I was completely over my head with embezzling money and knew I couldn’t get out; my wife was further from me than I could ever remember, absorbed in her career and being supermom while I knew I was just a check, just a guy put in place to complete her life.

I read Lance Armstrong’s book about his battle with cancer and learned even mean, negative people can overcome the disease and I thought damn, Mark’s not that unique. My wife told me to make peace with him.  “You’ll regret it if something happens and you hadn’t”, she told me as he underwent a stem cell replacement.

I listened to her and went to Durham.  He was the same old Mark; bitter, demanding and negative.  And, I’m not sure why, but when I got ready to leave I leaned over, kissed his forehead and told him I loved him.

Years ago my mother came across a book she asked me to read.  “Brother to a Dragonfly” by Will D. Campbell.  She told me it would help explain the difficult relationship I was having with Mark.  I was too arrogant and headstrong to read it.  I didn’t need someone explaining to me how frustrated I was over my brother.  While at the jail, going through daily crises like divorce, stories in the paper about me, and my kids and friends turning their backs on me, I found an excerpt from the book.  And, it did explain a lot. 

Last year I was sitting here one weekend when my brother drove up on his Harley.  The sound from his bike stopped inmates in their tracks.  “You know that guy Larry?”  “Yeah”, I told the guys, impressed and awestruck that I’d know a Harley owner.  “That’s my brother”.

We spent almost four hours together that day just talking.  Before then, I don’t think he ever understood my situation.  I know I didn’t completely understand his.  After that we exchanged a few letters.  He always said “I’ll be back up”.  About three months ago Mark was hospitalized.  The cancer was spreading and his liver was shutting down.  He was angry, afraid, abusive at times.  I prayed a great deal about him these past weeks and months.  I knew he deserved, like everyone, some peace.  He hadn’t had much of that in his life.

I took the news in stride on Wednesday.  The guys here those “bad men” who “deserve what they’ve gotten” – huddled around me:  dozens of words of condolence, pats on the back.  It reminded me that we miss the humanity that exists in all of us.  There is a soul that flickers, even in the worst.  None of us are beyond redemption.

The night before his death my aunt sent me a picture of my brother and me.  I was perhaps 8, he 5.  We were smiling.  After I learned of his passing I prayed that God welcome him and give him the peace he so longed for.  I closed my eyes to sleep and wept because, well I loved him.  He was my only brother.

Worth Reading

This past week I came across a number of articles worth mentioning. 

Want to understand why we should be offended over the government’s assassination of an American citizen/terrorist in Yemen?  Read law Professor Jonathan Turley’s Op Ed in Wednesdays (10/5) USA Today.

As the professor noted:

“No republican can long stand if a president retains the unilateral authority to kill citizens whom he deems a danger to the country.  What is left is a magnificent edifice of laws and values that, to quote Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’”

Be afraid when government, with the power to imprison or kill, unilaterally exerts that power without so much as a whimper about law or justice.

In that same day’s paper, the editors of USA Today, noting Amanda Knox’s release, drew a cogent comparison to the Casey Anthony case. 

“How did Knox end up under arrest, held without bail and imprisoned for four years?  Perhaps one part of the answer is that her case had more in common with Anthony’s than first impressions would suggest.  A rush to judgment in any language is a dangerous thing . . . So which system is worse?  One that might let a killer go free or one that puts an innocent person in jail?  Put yourself in Knox’s shoes, and the answer is obvious.”

Two very powerful points.  Here is the simple truth:  prosecutors and police make mistakes.  They want to close cases and get wins.  I have literally met hundreds of men who were lied to, cajoled; you name it, to get a conviction.  Were they guilty?  In most cases, yes.  But when the police are allowed to lie, to distort the truth, justice suffers.

And finally, don’t think Virginia needs prison reform?  Read about the success in Texas with early release, alternative sentencing for non-violent felons, and emphasis on programs.  The Texas Public Policy Foundation reports in its September 2011 newsletter of significant money savings as well as reduced inmate population and lower crime rates.  Perhaps Governor McDonnell could learn a few things from Texas Governor Perry.

Finally “The Daily Press” (Hampton Roads newspaper) called for prison reform on September 26^th.  How many more editorials have to be written before the Governor and the General Assembly finally do the right thing?