One of the first things Shannon ever told me, in regards not only to his case but to communication with him in general, was that whenever the law is involved, everything is sure to move slowly. That has proven to be, over the last five years, a drastic understatement.
As I mentioned in the introduction of this series, a lot of evidence that has recently been discovered is still under seal, meaning that I am legally obligated to do one of the things I hate the most: keep my thoughts to myself. It's extremely frustrating to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that someone you love is innocent--yet you're unable to tell the world why. It would be different if I could find an outside source, someone privy to the same information and willing to go on the record and share. But even after twenty-six years, people are still wary to discuss this case. Those who have sat down and shared candidly with me have asked to remain unattributed sources--which I can use as a last resort, but they wouldn't do much to foster my journalistic credibility. I sent a letter to Shannon before I published my first article, giving him a detailed list of evidence and arguments that I wanted to expound upon. But, as I said, the law and everything it touches is at times unbearably slow. Letters are opened and searched once they reach the prison. If something seems off, they are read. They may be held back from the inmate and read again. Phone calls are recorded and subject to surveillance. Communication is never easy or quick. For these reasons, I cannot publish the summary of evidence I intended to until I receive confirmation and approval from Shannon first. However, this setback gave me the idea to write about something I feel to be equally important.
For you to be as emotionally involved as I am in this case, for you to be able to feel the outrage and the angry bubble of bile in the back of your throat--you need to know Shannon as a person. I could try to succinctly describe him in a number of neat paragraphs for you to read during your lunch break, but I wouldn't be able to do it. Not accurately, in any case. It's probably better to let Shannon do that for himself, and I have a unique way to provide that perspective--by sharing some of his journal entries with you. Shannon kept (and as far as I know, still keeps) a journal of his experiences in prison as well as his rumination on a multitude of subjects. Shannon is a colorful and vivid storyteller, which is both one of his greatest qualities as well as one of the traits that prosecutors have tried to use against him. His unique writing voice and conversational tone made it quite easy for us to enjoy a close friendship through countless letters. I hope that the passages below, taken largely from the entries between March of 2007 through January 2008, will foster the same kind of feeling with you. Despite his faults, Shannon is a sincere man that I think many people would enjoy knowing.
ON PRISON TRANSFERS
I left Terre Haute, Indiana on a Wednesday. As per usual, no one told me beforehand, so I was not able to let my family and friends know. They will not be aware until their mail gets returned to them in thirty days, or until I write them from here. I'm given time to dress, then hustled onto a bus, then to a plane. Then the fun really begins. While being transported, everyone is required to wear leg shackles and handcuffs attached to their waist by a sort of belly chain. All maximum security prisoners are required to wear a "black box" that locks over the handcuffs, devised in such a way to physically prevent you from freeing yourself, even if you were handed a key. This makes the handcuffs especially uncomfortable, and often causes bruising and lacerations. Do not, of course, forget the shackles. If you take too long of a stride, they slam into the fronts and backs of your ankles. (The chain between them is short because they are meant to keep you from running away.) However, if you take short steps to spare your ankles, some guard will invariably be shoving you, saying to hurry up. You don't want to get shoved too much; if you fall while chained, you can't catch yourself. I've been there and done that, so believe me when I say it's not a good experience. So you just walk and let the cuffs bang against you with every step, which usually gives you what prisoners call "shackle bite"--big raw spots on the fronts and backs of your ankles. I've got scars from it.
At a guess, I would say the average transport time before making a stop and getting unchained is roughly ten hours. If there are delays, the trip can get pretty painful. The longest I've ever been continuously in transit was about 52 hours, and when it was over, I felt like I was crippled. That is why there is rarely trouble at transfer centers. By the end of their journey, inmates are sore, hungry, tired, and just wanting to be assigned a cell.
ON ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND RECIDIVISM
There is a phenomena I have observed in prisoners (and also myself) which seems to be universal. It is a sort of arrested development, that keeps us from realizing or acknowledging how old we are. I don't mean some sort of immaturity or refusal to "act our age" either. I mean a very real fact among long-term prison inmates that we cannot process and register how much time has gone by.
No one cares if you get up at five in the morning, or if you lay around in bed until two. The time of the year is just as immaterial to us as the day of the week. No one pays attention to the holidays or birthdays, and there is no significant reference point for a person to really grasp the passage of time.
I was arrested when I was nineteen, and I'm thirty-six now. On a logical level, I have no doubts about my age. But I still do not really feel it, not in any way that is meaningful. I am forever catching myself on a gut level believing that I am still only nineteen years old, and I can't seem to shake that, no matter how hard I try.
Now, exactly what this means, or how it has relevance to anything, I'm not sure. I'm still sorting out theories in my mind. But I feel quite positive that this type of arrested development is related in a serious manner to recidivism, and whether or not an individual can readjust to society after long-term imprisonment.
ON PRISON ECONOMICS
The medium of exchange in prison is stamps. (It used to be cigarettes, but with tobacco gone from all the Federal prisons, those days are over.) A book of stamps, even though it costs $7.80 in the prison store, depreciates in value the instant you touch it. On the "yard" (the open prison compound) it is only valued around $5.00. Needless to say, everyone prefers to buy used books rather than new. Only the wealthy or desperate buy their stamps at the store. If you are smart and have the available resources, it is best to approach the people who keep stamps in bulk, like drug dealers or bookies. Those types of people want money on the outside, so if you can send the money directly to their families, they will sell one hundred books at $4.00 apiece. I've known guys who support themselves solely by purchasing stamps that way, and reselling in smaller quantities to other inmates.
The books are utilized in much the same manner as money is on the outside. Just like in the free world, cash is king. Want to buy food from an inmate who steals it from the kitchen? You need stamps. Want to gamble? Buy drugs? Pay someone to stab a guy you don't like? It will cost you some stamps. Everyone wants them, everyone needs them, and everyone is always on the hustle to get them--by hook or by crook.
Real money is rare, and it only comes into prison by one of two ways: It can be sent to your account by someone on the outside, or it can be paid into your account for working a prison job. Most jobs don't pay much. I've earned $35 a month working in the kitchen, around $26 as an orderly, and $12 for mowing the grass. There are "Unicor" factory jobs as well; assembly line type work, mostly building items for the US military. These jobs range from sewing pants and shirts to making starter cables for jets to assembling wiring harnesses for tanks.
Although I have done it, I dislike working the Unicor jobs. It is a huge scam. Companies pay inmates ten cents to a dollar for skilled labor that would cost twenty to forty dollars an hour if done by non-prisoners. I recall one Unicor contract for the production of aircraft carrier cables. Total inmate labor per unit was $12, total parts cost per unit ran around $468. Yet the sale price to the military was $5,800 per unit! So citizens' tax money houses and feeds a labor force that is taking good jobs from selfsame citizens--then they get bilked yet again when their tax money is used to purchase, by way of military expenditure, the products of that labor force! How ridiculous is that?
ON PRISON LIFE AND VIOLENCE
I just spent the entire night cleaning up water, because some other inmates decided to flood the tier. Since there are no shelves or anywhere else to place my belongings, they were all on the floor when water came rushing in underneath my door. I was able to beat it to my journal, so it was rescued, but the rest of my things were not so lucky. Clothing, envelopes, books, toilet paper--all of it, soaking wet. And since it was toilet water, all is beyond salvage as well.
Now, far be it from me to tell another prisoner what he should or should not do. But when you do something that will affect other prisoners around you, it is expected... No, it is required, that you do what you can to lessen the impact. If you feel you have a reason to flood, that is okay, as long as you have the common courtesy to give out a warning. That is just a part of the unwritten code of conduct in prison. These inmates gave no warning.
Now, all of today will be spent trying to obtain replacement items for everything. This is a huge hassle, because bringing in dry clothing, towels, and bedding is extra work, so the guards resist it every step of the way. My cell reeks; there is no such thing as the luxury of cleansers or disinfectants in the SHU (special housing unit.) I was allowed a shower, but I still feel dirty. Approximately seventy percent of the prison population has Hepatitis C (yep, the incurable kind) so every time something like this happens, and I'm forced to live in other people's filth, I imagine myself becoming infected. It is a very real and grim possibility. You're only allowed minimal clothing in the SHU--2 changes of clothes, with underwear, socks, pants, and t-shirts--and you're forced to make do with those, flooding or no.
Back to the flooding. It's usually new inmates that do this, rudely and without warning. Check ins, snitches, and deviants are, for the most part, kept separate from other inmates while in prison. This is different in the SHU. While they may have crept around like tiny mice while in population, praying to escape notice, they are often transformed as soon as a door locks protectively behind them. Overnight, they become what we call "cell warriors"; yelling, cursing, and making threats from their place of safety, flooding cells or hammering on walls and doors, simply to make those nearby miserable.
Like it or not, violence is an integral part of prison, just as much as bricks or bars. That is often hard for those in the free world to understand. While sitting at home in a comfortable chair, safely hedged round by laws and society's civilized convention, it is very easy to look at situations logically, and say what should or should not be done to avoid violence. While learning of prison through books, movies, or the media, it is easy to criticize. Problems that can arise in prison, whether the dilemma be physical, moral, or otherwise, may seem easy to solve when presented in an abstract form. Things become a bit more difficult when the gates slam shut behind you. The smell of unwashed bodies, urine, and fear clog your senses and you are on your own.
In order to comprehend prison behavior, one must first have an understanding of human behavior in general. It has long been observed that in times of great stress or danger, certain primitive reactions will emerge in all types of people, indiscriminately. The responses have been genetically bred within us, as a defensive mechanism. Studies of modern soldiers in dangerous situations have shown this sort of reversion to tribalistic behavior, and I feel the same is true of prisoners.
The first thing inmates do upon arrival is segregate themselves. Many people, when presented with this information, would put it down to racism. But that is not a sufficient explanation. Certainly, there are racists in prison. But when confronted with the fact that every racial group in prison experiences this self-segregation--whether white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or Indian--in order for the racism theory to be valid, it would have to be assumed that all members of all those groups were racists. That is easily demonstrable to be untrue.
The real answer, at least to me, is primitive behavior. Entering prison is often one of the most frightening experiences of a person's life. The brutality of prison is an often used theme of Hollywood movies, and has been for as many decades. Prison rape is a subject so commonly accepted in our society, it has exceeded its ability to shock or revolt, and is now used as fodder by most comedians and insults in rap songs. Prison riots as plotlines in movies cease to be interesting. For those of us who actually live it, it never gets less frightening, or dangerous. It is never a punchline. In this world, it is survival of the fittest. Tribalistic defensive mechanisms kick in, and an inmate seeks out those he can most easily align with, those with whom he feels the most comfortable--and that is usually within his own race. Racism is not a subject that factors into that decision, at least for most.
Here, I want to break in and rattle the narrative flow before you read the final passage I'm sharing. I saved this for last, because to me, it's the realest and the most poignant. It's the whole reason I became so engrossed in Shannon's world. It's something that I want you to keep in mind, dear reader, when you check back in for the progression of Shannon's story each week. There are foxes guarding the hen house.
ON JAILHOUSE SNITCHES AND CORRUPTION IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
Prosecutors are well aware that snitches always lie. Some simply do not care if a defendant is guilty or not. Most justify their actions by telling themselves that people are guilty, and the lies a snitch tells only help justice to be done in a more expedient manner. But all prosecutors do it, whatever their justifications. They knowingly and on a regular basis allow snitches to commit perjury on the stand, in order to obtain convictions, thus violating the laws they have sworn to uphold. That seems to be, in my way of thinking anyhow, a most unspeakable crime.
Now, I am a criminal. There was a time long ago when I was not, but a lot has changed. I see no purpose in denying what I have become. Perhaps I should not be pointing fingers or casting blame when it comes to committing crime. Yet it still seems to me that crimes committed by those who take oaths, cloaking themselves in the guise of protectors of the public, while at the same time violating that public trust, are crimes of a greater magnitude. Such acts strike at the very fiber that holds our society together. If criminals (prosecutors) collude with criminals (jailhouse snitches) to lock away other perceived criminals, who can you really trust? If you can follow the laws, yet still be convicted of any crime because of unscrupulous snitches sponsored by unlawful prosecutors, then why follow the laws at all? When the foxes are guarding the henhouse, no one is truly safe.
Some of you reading this may feel my opinions of snitches and prosecutors are shaded by my own prosecution and imprisonment. And to be fair, there is truth in that. I feel an instinctive dislike for those who have wronged me, as most people do. But I am not exaggerating when I lay out the facts of what snitches are about. My original court cases are a good example.
As you may be aware, one of the things I was charged with was bank robbery, by way of kidnapping the bank president and forcing him to open the bank, then murdering him afterwards. The case has many topics that are interesting, but I will stick with snitches for now.
One set of jailhouse snitches was used at the "grand jury" to obtain an indictment. These grand jury hearings are closed and secret; no one is allowed in beyond the witness, the prosecutor, and the jurors themselves. The subject, or the person they are trying to indict, is not allowed to be present. Neither is his lawyer. No one cross-examines the witness, or in any way tries to ascertain if what they are saying is true. For this reason, I'm sure you can understand, it is easy to manipulate a jury's opinion on any subject. The prosecutor completely decides what the jurors get to hear, or more importantly, what they do not.
Most of the snitches at my grand jury hearing were not used beyond obtaining the indictment, because in no way would their testimony have stood up under examination. One testified that I paid cash for a new motorcycle a week after the Noel bank robbery took place. The jury was never allowed to hear, however, that prior to that hearing the prosecutor had been given financial records proving that I had purchased the bike over a month PRIOR to the robbery--from an account that had held money for years. One snitch testified that he had received a phone call from me, confessing to the crime. The jury was not informed that this man was a mentally disturbed individual who had already accused several people of various crimes--and often confessed to committing them himself. The fact that phone records after the robbery showed that no such call had ever taken place was left out of the hearing as well. I could go on and on, but I digress.
That is how I know snitches lie. That is why I hate snitches. That is why everyone hates snitches. Because everyone can be vulnerable to them, any time or place, regardless of innocence or guilt. And once you realize that fact, you cannot possibly feel but loathing and fear in their presence.
I will leave you with a few questions, dear readers, until next week. Can justice truly be served if a man can be indicted for heinous crimes, solely on the testimony of one side, without any examination? Is justice being served when nearly every witness testifying against a man has received some sort of payment or favor in exchange for their story? Who is guarding the henhouse?