Solitary anyone?
Russell’s been in solitary confinement for the last 35 years. He’s not in prison because he hurt someone. It was a robbery committed by someone else that he got convicted of because of ineffective assistance of counsel. That happens all the time for those who cannot afford the best justice money can buy. Once in prison, he concluded that he was going to take back what he knew was stolen from him……his freedom.
He made a plan with another con, they stole a prison truck, and crashed through the gates. Russell managed to elude a massive law enforcement dragnet for seven days. Cops and jailers take it very personally when their incompetent side is revealed. That injured pride pushed them to decide…..this guy is never getting another chance to show them up!
So, 35 years later, escorted by two officers and handcuffed to a belt around his waist he is shut inside the 3′ X 5′ prisoner visitor cage. His arms go through a slot, cuffs and belt are removed, and he’s ready for a two hour visit with his wife Frances, and me. He’s all smiles and totally ready to talk about future options for reviewing his conviction, marketing this latest art, which, along with faith, kept him sane all these years, and planting seeds of change.
He knows correctional employees have nothing to do with his wrongful conviction. At the same time he knows that their mission is to promote behavior change. He wants the world to know how the gap between what many correctional employees are doing and what they are supposed to be doing is like the Grand Canyon. Not surprisingly, he’s watched fellow residents go insane or kill themselves. He agrees with the United Nations position that more than 15 days in solitary is torture.
In Texas it’s not called solitary anymore…….it’s Administrative Segregation or Restrictive Housing. When a person ends up there they are informed that a review of their status will take place in six months. When six months rolls around a hearing is held without due process for the prisoner and a decision is made…..stay or go. Russell has a ten year paper trail documenting his efforts to get a falsely applied label removed from his file…..a label that keeps him there. He’s neither a gang member nor connected to any Aryan group.
Russell states he has been “case free” for at least ten years. Essentially a model prisoner. He wants to know what can be done about people like him? He has never been a threat to other people. He knows he’s caught in an unexamined, dysfunctional, anti-individual, legal/correctional arena mistakenly called a system.. He wants to be part of change and he wants freedom. Achieving that is going to require the legal help he cannot afford.
Who will step up, for him and so many others?????????????
https://www.texasobserver.org/