Transcript
No Title I’m writing this while in hand-cuffs and/or “full-restraints”, pardon my writing. This morning I was too sick to eat my food right then at that time. The c/o demanded that I give him the tray back right now. I told him I was sick I wanted to eat it later. He insisted, then called the Sergeant. I told the Sgt. the same thing. He insisted I give the tray back now. I started to refuse but I realized that they were trying to goad me into refusing so they could put me on “nutraloaf”, which is the equivalent of dog food, for a week (7 days). So I was gonna give the tray back and I did cuss them out- I had every right to be mad. I wasn’t going to get to eat simply because of their irrational demands. To let me eat later wouldn’t have hurt anyone. Common sense. So as I told him to just get the goddam tray he said “oh all right” and walked away. As he walked away he said “You know what this means”- meaning he was going to write me up and place me on “nutra-loaf”. So I lost it. I flooded the cell. I shouldn’t have let him get to me but the thought of 7 days of dog food (which I cannot and will not eat) was too much. He provoked me- they were not innocent. As I said it wouldn’t have hurt them to let me eat the food a little later. It’s a plastic tray. That’s all. It’s not heavy. It’s not a weapon. What could’ve been the harm? But they pushed the issue and got their reaction they wanted out of me. Now I’ve got a write up, I’m in “full-restraints”, which are awful tight. I broke the pants belt loops in order to slide my hands from behind me and get them in front just so I could use the bathroom- I almost had to go on myself. That is how barbaric this dungeon really is. I’m on Doxicycline, an antibiotic, and it really messes my stomach up. That’s why I tried to keep the tray until my stomach settled down- I didn’t want to throw up the food. But they (the so-called “good” guys) didn’t care. Now I almost had to urinate on myself and the way I had to wiggle the cuffs from behind and under my feet has my wrists swollen up like balloons. They will be bruised and sore for days. And basically all because they wouldn’t allow me to eat when I was able to eat. I only get to eat 3 meals a day. Once I gave that back I had nothing. And all because of this I won’t be able to eat anything for 7 days because I cannot eat “nutraloaf”, which is a “loaf” with vegetables, beef, fruit, every food group mixed up and baked in a mix of god-awful smelling flour that is just too nasty for me to stomach- the mere smell of it repels me. It smells and looks like dog food. You know, I can understand why some people support such barbaric policies. They simply believe (simplemindedly) that all prisoners deserve what they get- especially if they’re convicted by a jury! A jury is impartial, right? But people don’t know the law. They don’t know that the judge controls exactly what the jury ever hears. In my case every time I tried to bring up the statements made against me by the plaintiff and his wife, which were obviously lies because ones story didn’t only contradict the other’s- it was two completely different stories and obviously one or both were lies (it was the latter) but every time I tried to tell the jury the judge ordered me to shut up and ordered the jury out. He then proceeded to threaten me that he’d ban me from the courtroom and try me without my presence. That is also known as duress, which is supposed to be illegal- but who cares? They’re above the law. Anyway the jury never heard those lies. They only saw and heard what the judge and DA allowed them to see! Don’t believe me? Well does it make it more believable that I’m telling the truth if you take into account the fact that the DA offered me a plea-“bargain” for 6 years if I’d just confess. I refused. I was facing up to 400+ months! That’s 40+ years. If I was guilty of attempted murder I would’ve gladly took 6 years! But I have morals. I have principles- I’ll never say I did something I did not do! Never. I don’t care if they put me in hell. What I did was self-defense. The guy beat me and put me in the hospital too. He wasn’t charged with anything. So here I sit. The jury still knew enough to see I didn’t commit attempt murder. They convicted me of Assault with a Deadly Weapon inflicting serious injury. I know, it sounds bad. But life is not all peaches and cream- let me tell you! There’s a time a man can be forced to use violence- ask a police officer. They have no problem with blowing peoples’ brains out. So why the law for me but not for thee? I was drunk that day. Is that a crime? I’m over 21. But I was too drunk to get away. In my police reports/prosecution summary the police wrote that “Mr. Hughes couldn’t stand up to due to his apparent level of intoxication”. Those same cops still took the man’s wife’s word that I had “come running” and “jumped on top of” her husband. How? How could I? And when her husband testified against me he testified “I just remember staring down at him stabbing me”. Now how is that possible? I tried to pose the question to the jury but wasn’t allowed to mention the outright lie! Still believe in the jury system? You shouldn’t. I never got to mention any of these facts. Of course the police never spoke up either. Crooked bastards. So here I sit in shackles thanks to a liar and crooked cops who wouldn’t tell the truth. Oh, did I mention that I sat in jail for 15 ½ months awaiting trial and the prosecutor “just happened” to pick my trial date at a time when my eyewitness was in the hospital and couldn’t come to court? Did I mention that that very same witness came to my lawyer and admitted that the “victim” was threatening him to tell his version of events? And that when my lawyer attempted to tell the DA over the phone and to offer him to attend and hear the eyewitness testimony, that the DA got mad and refused? My lawyer made a recording of that meeting. We had it as evidence. The jury was never told any of this. They didn’t even know the witness existed! They weren’t allowed to hear the recording- nothing. (The judges handiwork). And I’m not mad at the jurors. I’m mad at the judge and the DA. They’re responsible. They knew the facts: still they prosecuted me. The jury gave me 6 years. This was after the judge refused to grant a continuance for a week in order to give my witness a chance to come to court. This only left me the option to appeal the verdict. I did. Because I, like most “lay people”, didn’t know the law I didn’t realize that if I “won” my appeal that it could take up to 4 years. Let that sink in: 4 years of hard time because the judge wouldn’t grant a damn continuance! I will be going home by then! And if I “won” my charge would go back to first degree attempted murder and I’d go back to jail and back before the same corrupt courts. So I did the only rational thing: I dropped it. Now here I sit. I’m pissed. I’ll never know security in my “freedom” ever again. I see the system for what it is. In now know that America is not the “land of the free”. It’s the land of prisons. America has 5% of the world’s population. Yet it has 25% of the world’s prison population. What does that tell you? If you can’t see how screwed up the system is- go back and read this again. Slowly. Then you’ll see. After I wrote this I realized that the janitors who’d cleaned up after I flooded had stolen 24 stamps and a few other things from my cell. I told the guards. They refused to do anything. I held the trap door open when they opened it at lunch that day. The Sgt. came and told me to shut the trap, he wouldn’t help. He was talking junk. A year ago he punched me in the face 5 or 6 times while I was cuffed behind the back. I got pissed and told him fuck him. He had a huge can of mace he was going to spray me with. I stood up and left my hands and arms out of the trap but pressed my stomach to the trap to block the spray before I told him “Fuck you pig”. I hate the asshole, shouldn’t I? Would you? Anyway he sprayed and the mace just ricocheted off of my stomach back in his face. He started coughing and that’s when he blanked and slammed the food port/door on my arms. I jerked back but he caught my thumb in the trap. They have done this to inmates before and literally cut off fingers. I saw my right thumb flattening out and screamed stop! The response was a knee slamming up into the trap. I thought the tip was going to come off but somehow I managed to get loose. It all happened really fast but it felt like slow motion. I went to the hospital and I plan to sue them for assaulting me like that. If they’d have let me speak to the Officer in Charge (OIC) I wouldn’t shut the trap. Instead of that they came with a Sgt. who’d assaulted me before and had problems with me already- armed with a grudge and a can of mace. I can’t even feel my thumb now. I don’t think it ever will have feeling again. I’m writing this on 8-21-15. This event all happened on Friday 8-14-15.
