Below is the letter I wrote to my judge prior to my modification hearing. I headed into court with what turned out to be an absurd amount of optimism since my case manager had told me another inmate whose case and situation mirrored mine in every way imaginable had just been released directly from court … More once you’ve lost everything
Well I finally made it to the Montgomery County Pre-Release Center and… it doesn’t feel all that profound. While stuck in Medical at the Clarksburg County Jail I got exactly zero fresh air for three months, and I honestly forgot to take note of the first gasp of the outside I got as we left … More can you be mostly free?
Well, as you’ve hopefully heard by now, my original Hearing Officer recommended me for a June 2016 release back on May 20th. As expected, the first Parole Commissioner to review my case rejected his recommendation – something that apparently happens in most cases. So on June 1st I requested an appeal of that decision, which … More the parole saga
Listen to “From Harvard to the Big House” a TED Ex-Con Talk I gave at church about my experiences with the men around me in prison, most of whom were much more scared and broken than predatory and threatening.
Memory is a funny thing. No matter how hard I try, I can’t really remember the terrible parts of prison. When I think back about those lost years… all I can remember is the good stuff. How incredible peanut butter tastes when you’re really damn hungry. High-fiving up and down our madhouse of a … More 1,300 days later
America’s prison system is just the smoke, to accomplish meaningful criminal-justice reform the underlying fires of educational, financial, and social inequalities must be addressed alongside any lasting and meaningful penal reform. Simply calling for laws to be slightly altered or pointing fingers at demographic imbalances are red herrings, fixing a system this broken requires first … More mission statement
Luckily for me, modern catalytic converters don’t pump out enough carbon-monoxide to kill you when you leave your car running in a closed garage. Turns out that over the past few decades they’ve become far more environmentally friendly, which means that although you’d eventually die – it’d be a slow painful death from a toxic … More our lives are not our own
The pen twitched and jerked six-inches from my left eyeball, “FUCK YOU, YOU RACIST MOTHAFUCKAH – I KNEW YOU WAS AYE-BEE!!” “AYE-BEE? AYBEE?! HOW THE FUCK COULD I BE ARAYAN BROTHERHOOD IF I’M HALF-FUCKING-JEW?” It was just my fifth night in the twelve-by-eight foot concrete cell, and apparently my cellmate, a hilariously militant member of … More The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Cellmate
A long, long time ago deep in the frozen underbelly of the Clarksburg County Jail, I looked down at my wrist and examined the plastic bracelet secured around it. The bracelet was a human-sized version of the sort of tag that naturalists and pet-stores use to track animals. Snapped on with a thick metal fastener … More still so cold