…And it will save the taxpayers of Virginia

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

Irony – “an event or result that is the opposite of what is expected.”  That word came into focus the other night as the local Richmond newscast reported that disgraced former Governor Robert McDonnell’s defense team countered the Federal Probation sentencing recommendation with a request for leniency and “community service”.  The defense recommendation noted “”serving in community service will save Virginia’s taxpayers over $300,000 in a decade.”  Hey Governor Bob, no kidding!! Yet, when you had that power, that ability, to commute sentences of non-violent felons doing time in Virginia’s prisons, you said no.  You wouldn’t intercede even when the sentence was harsh, even when the offender was remorseful, even when the taxpayers were paying over $25,000 each year just to keep the prisoner locked up.  You wouldn’t act courageously, justly, mercifully.  And now, with your own life’s house of cards collapsed around you, with no acknowledgement of guilt on your part, you ask for the very thing you denies so many.  Irony.

“Give mercy, and mercy will be given to you.  Forgive as your Father has forgiven you.”  Pretty clear words.  The meaning of those words so often escapes us.  Some call it Gospel Karma.  We continue to be legalistic.  We see fallen behavior, we rush to condemn and demand “justice”.  But our definition of justice, typically extracted in years and “pounds of flesh” is the exact opposite of the “word”.  “Law and order”. “tough on crime”, “truth in sentencing”, all make great campaign slogans until the man handcuffed before the court is your son, your friend, or you.  Those simple words, the Biblical admonitions are a reminder – and a warning – that the standards you set for others will one day be applied to you.  “But I’m not like him”, you say.  You may be – in God’s eyes where “all sin and fall short”.

Governor McDonnell had the power – and the opportunity – to make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of Virginia’s incarcerated, me included.  He could have said there are too many first-time felons doing too many years in Virginia’s prison system for nonviolent felonies.  He could have personally read the letters sent to him by the friends and families of hundreds of these inmates; he could have examined their incarceration records and seen evidence of genuine remorse and change.  Instead, he allowed those sentences to stand.  Worse, he ignored these men and women’s pleas while he was engaged in his own wrongdoing.  And now he prepares for his own day in court, his own sentencing. And, I’m sure he wonders, will the judge listen to him, to his family and friends, as a plea for sentencing mercy is made.  Ironic, isn’t it?

I believe there is no purpose served by sending Robert McDonnell to prison.  If U.S. District Judge James Spencer were to ask me, I would simply tell him, “Do not send this man to serve time”.  There is not purpose to it.  McDonnell has already been punished.  He has been convicted by a jury of Virginians.  His reputation, damaged; his family problems bared; his marriage is in shambles; his law career ruined.  Nothing is penologically served by now sending this broken man to a low-custody Federal prison.  No, Robert McDonnell does not deserve incarceration, any more than hundreds of men I’ve met these past six and a half years who are watching calendars turn, day upon day, month to month, year after year; in a warped dance called justice.  Perhaps showing Governor McDonnell justice with mercy will be the beginning of real corrections, real prison reform, real justice.  Perhaps another Governor is watching and thinking, “There but for the grace of God – and a rabid prosecutor – go I.”

February 3, 2009.  I was sentenced that day in a courtroom packed with friends who took the stand and asked the court to show me mercy.  My two assistants sat with coworkers.  Across from them, my parents and my retired minister sat.  They heard a community leader tell the court how I had turned the local Meals on Wheels around from a state of financial collapse.  Letters from church and community members were presented.  Each letter, each person who spoke, asked the court to show me mercy.

And then I stood before the court.  I have never felt so alone, so broken, so ashamed.  I had written a brief statement.  In it, I minced no words.  I wasn’t nuanced.  I admitted I broke the law – the same words I spoke the day I was arrested.  I apologized to my employer, my family, my friends, the court.  I bluntly told the court I failed my wife, my sons, my parents, my moral code.  I told the court I deserved prison.  I asked the judge to instead show me mercy.  Give me an opportunity to make right my wrongs. 

My words fell on deaf ears.  Within moments of my remarks ending, the court handed down my sentence.  There were gasps and weeping from friends, from my “girls”, my two assistants who’d each been with me over ten years.  Me?  I stood there, said “thank you” to the judge and walked out of the court.  You know what else?  My head was up.  I had spoken from the heart, told the truth.

Within a month I was served with divorce papers.  Would a shorter sentence have saved our marriage?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if she could have ever forgiven me for the betrayal.  Still, how do you ask someone to stay for fifteen years?  Within a month, I was assigned my DOC number.  I was now “in the system”.  Less than four months later, I was in a cell with a gangleader doing 76 years for murder, in the oxymoron known as DOC receiving at Powhatan. 

No, Bob McDonnell doesn’t deserve all that.  He deserves mercy…just like a lot of us in here.

 

 

Dear Tom Wolfe

Dear Mr. Wolfe,

            It’s been over twenty years since I read your first novel, Bonfire of the Vanities. That is, until I re-read it here in prison last week. And I have to tell you, the story made a lot more sense to me now than then.

            Back then, during my first read, I was a young, successful trial attorney, a partner in a small litigation firm in East Tennessee. I was in the middle of a large bank fraud case pitting shareholders of a failed bank against their board members as they sought to recover staggering financial losses after their bank was taken over by the FDIC.

            I picked the book up and read each night to unwind from the day’s proceedings. Scotch in one hand, TV tuned to ESPN, I’d read a few pages and laugh at the travails Sherman McCoy created for himself. My wife was nearly full term with our first child. I’d watch her attempt to lift herself out of a chair, a petite frame with a twenty pound ball strapped to her front, and read your words and think, where does this guy in the white suit come up with this stuff?

            Those days were so long ago. I’m over fifty now, divorced from that young woman, alienated from our two sons, four years into a thirteen year sentence for embezzlement. I read your book again. This time, I didn’t laugh as much. This time, I knew what Sherman McCoy felt. I knew because I’d been there. And I wondered, how did you know what it was like: the arrest, the loss, the shame, despair, and guilt? How did you know and why didn’t I pay attention all those years ago?

            Rationalization. I guess it’s part of the deadly sin of pride, but we rationalize way too much when it comes to our behavior. We know what we’re supposed to do and yet, so often doing the right thing is the furthest thought from our mind. We’re quick to hold others in contempt for their foibles and failing, but ourselves? We kind of give a quick wink.

            I was arrested at my office. For a number of years I’d been living a lie, taking money from work. It was small amounts at first, a thousand here or there. But, as the years progressed the amounts grew. I became like Santa Claus after a while. Any friend, coworker, or family member who needed anything could come to me. And I rationalized away my behavior. After all, I’d tell myself, I was a good employee in every other way. No one worked harder. And, I was active in my church and community. I was keeping our local Meals on Wheels afloat, I’d remind myself, to offset the guilt that was starting to grow in the dark recesses of my mind.

            I re-read Bonfire and came to Sherman’s explanation for his ‘drinker’s insomnia.” He needed to tell his wife what he’d done. Instead, he acted as though all was right in their world. Then, in the middle of the night, he’d awaken. His heart pounding, his mind racing one thousand miles an hour, he would be racked by guilt, and shame, and fear of being caught.

            Those words, that description, was my life. There were the 4:00 a.m. puffy, bloodshot eyes, the six scotches before bed to help me shut down, the paranoia every day at work that “today’s the day” they get me. And, there was the pleading and the deal making with God each morning on my commute. “God, I don’t want to lose my wife and kids; I don’t want to go to prison. Get me out of this. I’m a good man. Please get me out of this.”

            But actions have consequences. As I said, I was arrested at work, denied bond (too many assets, I was deemed a flight risk), I was hauled away to jail. I turned in my navy blue blazer, khaki’s, oxford shirt with Jerry Garcia tie, and Kenneth Cole shoes for a two piece puke green jail jumper (v-neck and elastic waist) with “Jackie Chans” (cheap plastic shower shoes).

            The jail stunk. It smelled of sweat and excrement and rotten food. They threw me in a cell by “reception” (funny choice of words I thought) to “make sure you don’t off yourself.” And every fifteen minutes, in that eight by eight cell with the dirty yellow bulb staying on, an officer came by and said “You alright in there?” I’d say “yeah,” but I wasn’t. I knew it was all gone.

            I thought about that as I read Sherman tell his lawyer, “All I can tell you is that I’m already dead … your ‘self’ is other people, all the people you’re tied to, and it’s only a thread.” Sherman knew so much. He knew what it was like sitting in the cesspool that is a jail. He knew what it was like to defend yourself against men who quite frankly don’t give a shit, who will beat you senseless over a perceived snub or a twenty cent ramen noodle.

            Soon enough you too have to learn not to give a shit. Weakness is death in here, so you lash out and try and become what you’re not capable of being: unempathetic, devoid of compassion, atonement, and kindness. But some of us can’t live like that.

            Somehow, you understood that. Your words, “He ain’t got the heart for being on the wrong side of the law. I don’t care who you are, sometimes in your life you’re gonna be on the wrong side of the law, and some people got the heart for it and some don’t,” rang truer than you may know.

            I realized I didn’t have the heart for it. And, I realized I couldn’t be like most of the men in here. I lost everything: freedom, wife, sons, friends, career, wealth, and for a long time I thought “I’m already dead, my heart just doesn’t know it”. I had a decision to make: quit or fight back. I loved that about Sherman. He too was all set to quit until his “friend” tried to persuade him to leave his building.

            Friends. I knew dozens and dozens of people. I got locked up and all of them, save one small handful, bailed. I decided not to quit. It was the toughest decision of my life and there are days even now when I wonder if I made the right choice. But, I couldn’t, I can’t quit.

            This entire episode has been life changing and it’s taught me a few things. A major life lesson is you find out who you really are, what’s at your core, when you’re put in a place, an environment, like this that is (pardon my crassness) completely fucked up.

            And, you don’t have to be like every other guy going through this. Most of the men in here come from lousy homes, lousy schools, lousy economies. They’re poor, ignorant, and alienated from the American dream. And for all their bravado they quietly acquiesce to their life’s lot. They can’t see beyond this place and the shitty existence they knew before. Prison to them is just another stop on their train to nowhere.

            It’s depressing, but it also makes me angry enough to fight back. I teach, GED prep, college tutoring, and creative writing. Yes, I write. I write blogs about this experience and the complete failure of the criminal justice system. Face it, there’s not “justice” in the system and no “corrections” going on in here. And I write stories about broken people. One think I’ve learned from this is we’re all broken in some way. But, there’s redemption when you come face to face with your brokenness and overcome it.

            I write this letter so you would know that Sherman McCoy matters. His story isn’t too farfetched (just look at the headlines about CIA Director Petreaus!) I’m still not sure how you knew the nuts and bolts of jail or what guilt and shame are like. But, you do and your man Sherman lived it.

            Earlier in this letter I told you my thoughts on rationalization. It’s “the glass house” effect. We are quick to pass judgment on others all the while we cut corners and try and have things “our way.” Sherman wasn’t a bad guy. But, this isn’t about being good or bad. It’s about doing the right thing even when no one is watching.

            Thank you for Sherman McCoy and all the other characters you create with their foibles and biases, desires, and idiosyncrasies. Your books capture life, our sarcastic way we screw up and, hopefully, get it back together and go on.

All Around Like Heron

A guy came up to me at the law library asking if I’d take a look at his “paperwork” and see if there were any options he had to get his sentence reduced. As I do with anyone who asks, I said “sure”. He then said, “Your name is all around the yard like heron”.



I didn’t know quite what he meant so I asked my friend Ty – the law library aide – exactly what he was talking about. “Heron, you know ‘heroin’. In the projects everyone knows where to score heroin. In here, everyone knows who to turn to for help.”


He then said this: “You’re a righteous man. The guys here respect you because you care and you try. It’s not about a hustle to you.”


I thought a great deal about Ty’s comments. The strange thing is, in here I am who I am. I’m still the same outgoing guy I was before my arrest. I talk to anybody; white, black, Hispanic, gangbangers, gay, it doesn’t matter. Most guys in prison keep to themselves. They say little, if anything. I’ve always engaged people. Just me being me. As my friend Paul (a/k/a “hippohead” – guy must have the biggest head on record!) said, “Only you could act this way in prison”.


The “helping” issue is a little different. Years ago, when I was in private practice, I was a damn good lawyer. I outworked my opponent, out hustled them. I viewed law practice as hand to hand combat. I wanted to win, whether it was the right result or not.


When I met my wife in college, I was young and idealistic. I told her I wanted to defend the oppressed and argue great questions of constitutional law. Then came law school, marriage, law practice. I wanted to win; I didn’t care who got hurt. The win was all that mattered.


I changed. I took the job at Farm Bureau and was damn good at that too. I evaluated cases for the company. I made recommendations when to fight and when to settle. I can honestly say my opinions were always correct, if correct means calling a case within a few dollars of what a jury would do.


I told my wife how much a life was worth. So much of my job was about that. How much was a 7 year-old girl worth who died in a car accident? How much is a 45 year-old homemaker’s life worth?


I got involved in community service, working with my church and the local Meals on Wheels group. I like to think I did it to “give back”. Thinking about it recently, I’m afraid I did it to compensate, to balance out the fact that I put winning ahead of what’s right.


Self-reflection is a scary thing. You look in the mirror one day and see “the real you”, at least the you you’ve become and you realize you could have, should have done better. I realized after my arrest I’d been after all the wrong things. I wanted so badly to be loved and appreciated, I was willing to lie and steal. I realized I was so hell-bent on success; I’d sold out my values.


So I lost everything. The woman I loved never loved me. My kids turned from me. My own church abandoned me. Friends left me. Almost every dollar I earned, every possession I owned, was given up. Then, I found my idealism again.


I help guys in here. But, I tell them the truth. I won’t file suite for a guy just to file. If he’s guilty, I work toward a fair sentence. Remorseful? I use a pardon. I’m researching and briefing significant points of Constitutional Law. It’s funny sometimes how God works. Our lives come full circle.


I recently found out a friend from church was in the last few days of her life. She has fought cancer courageously for a number of years. This beautiful woman is now confined to her bed, with only days remaining. Friends have been sitting with her so her husband could continue holding his college classes. My ex-wife has been with her a number of days.


I wrote my youngest son earlier this week and told him to see, understand and love the compassion he is witnessing from his mom. “Be gentle and kind”, I urged him. It means more than all the power, prestige, and wealth in the world.


My morning devotional the other day included a verse from 1 John – “The world is passing away . . . but the one that does the will of God lives forever”.


I may be wrong, but I think God’s will is ultimately that we love, we forgive, we be kind and compassionate. Hard to believe it took prison for me to realize that.


Ty told me something else the other day. He told me a group of guys had prayed for me. Two months ago, I helped a guy win a new appeal when I argued his lawyer provided ineffective assistance of counsel. We filed a Bar complaint and learned last week the attorney had been disbarred (11 complaints; 3 from inmates. The attorney admitted he suffered from depression which led him to not prepare his cases).


The other two inmates are also housed here. I’ve filed papers for them to get appeals granted. Given the Bar’s action, their appeals will be granted. At least they will get a fair shot at proving their innocence.


Perhaps these cases would have worked out that way without me. I’m not smart enough to know the answer to that. I only know that the idealism I felt as a young man is back.


It really is weird to count you blessings when you’re in a tough spot. For all my stupid stories about prison, this experience really does suck. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I was still with my wife and kids, sleeping in my bed, watching the sunset from my deck. But, I’m doing better than I ever expected in here. And, I got guys praying for me and comparing my presence here to heroin in the ‘hood. All in all, not as bad as I thought.