I will start this essay by pointing out

Gerald Uden WMCI 7076 Road 55-F Torrington, Wyoming 82240 11/13/2019 American Prison Writing Archive (APWA) Hamilton College Digital Humanities Initiative 198 College Hill Road Clinton, New York 13323 RE: Essay I will start this essay by pointing out that the education of legal matters for all citizens young or old is sorely lacking. Most people unless they have had direct contact (I.E. been arrested or tried and convicted of a crime), have no idea of what the laws are or how they are applied. I will use myself as an example. In 2013 I made an unsolicited confession to the authorities of the state of Wyoming that I had committed three murders some thirty-three years prior. I was arrested and transported from Missouri to Wyoming. Why did I do this stupid thing, because I did not want my wife to be charged with those crimes? She was being charged with the murder of her third husband also. She was tried and found guilty and sentenced to life. I hired an attorney to defend me. The only thing the attorney did was to get a plea deal where if I communicated to the authorities where the bodies were the State agreed not to seek the death penalty. (The Bodies to date have not been found or recovered). This is where the ignorance of the law comes into play. There were numerous errors made. First at the initial arraignment I was not given a charging document but was bound over for trial. At the trial I made mention of the fact I thought I was temporarily insane. No one not the court, the prosecution, or the defense made any effort to stop the proceeding and have a competency hearing. Then the judge had me give my confession in court and I was sentenced to life in prison. I did not know that no confession can be accepted without corroborating evidence. I could not show the authorities where the bodies are, so the plea deal should have been void, and the Death Penalty invoked. Any one of these factors should have been enough to result in dropping the charges and some anger at my wasting the Courts time. I did not know anything about the law or court procedure until after my wife died in prison at the age of eighty. At that time I told my cellie my story and he, being learned in the law showed me all the errors that took place in my case. He agreed to help me get my conviction overturned. In June of 2019 I obtained new evidence from the court transcripts of my case and the errors according to the law and court procedure were plainly evident. In July of 2019 I filed a motion with the court to rehear my case but was turned down because I had waited too long. (Over five years Nixon v. State of Wyoming) The problem was Nixon case was filed as an appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court and what I was doing was not an appeal to the higher court, it was a Motion to withdraw my guilty plea. I was turned down anyway. The court said it didn't have jurisdiction to hear the Motion. In the State of Wyoming very few convictions are ever overturned. One of the reasons for this is that the State's attitude towards inmates' is since you have been convicted you must be guilty and we aren't letting you out even if you are really innocent. What we have in Wyoming is a rush to judgment and to hell with the Law. Second the State gets money from the Federal Government for each prisoner so there is a financial incentive to keep people for as long as possible. This shows up in the Drug Treatment Page 1 of 2 Hamilton College Digital Humanities Initiation Essay Sex Offender rehabilitation programs. When a person is convicted of a drug or sex crime usually but not always the court will mandate as part of the sentence the offender must go through a rehabilitative (read definition of brainwashing, Source: Wiktionary) program. Only after completing the course can a person be eligible for parole or release. There are several inmates' who have been thru the program at least three times and are still here. Some inmates' that haven't even been convicted of sex crimes are being made to program. Inmates' who are not mandated by the court to program have been retaliated against for refusal to participate by sending them to solitary or to Wyoming State Penitentiary (W.S.P) at Rawlins, Wyoming and/or flattening their sentence, denying parole. When people first come here they are given an evaluation assessment to determine the severity of their rehabilitative needs on a scale of 1.0 to 3.5 being the highest. Most drug offenders no matter the severity of their crimes get a score of 3.5. There is a similar evaluation assessment for sex offenders and they are subjected to the same kinds of treatment. This is supposed to be a quote, unquote working prison. By that I mean if you are not programming you must have a job. If you refuse you are sent to WSP at Rawlins. This applies to everyone until the age of Seventy-One (71). I was seventy-one when I came here but was told I had to work anyhow. So I worked in the kitchen for three years and then some months cleaning showers in the pod. Finally when I turned Seventy-Five (75), I told them I was going to retire regardless. I wound up not having to work and I have stayed here. Wyoming has the death penalty but never uses it. Here it is execution by old age, (Ethical Euthanasia) It is cheaper that way in not sensational or newsworthy. On the tenth of October, 2019 I filed a Post-Conviction Petition for factual innocence with the 9th District Court for Fremont County Wyoming. By rule the Court has twenty days to answer or rule on the motion, or refer to the State Attorney General's Office who has forty five days to answer or one hundred twenty days for the Fremont County Attorney to answer. It is now the 12th of December. It is well past the twenty day limit, so I filed a Motion for Default Judgment and so far haven't gotten an answer from the court it looks like the court has no intent to follow the law. So here in Wyoming we don't have the rule of law rather, we have kangaroo courts that make up the rules as they go along. I wrote to the Court on the 4th of December, sending a Motion to Show Cause why no ruling has been made and a personal letter to the judge that unless he makes a ruling by the 10th of December I intend to file a motion for a civil rights suit for violation of my Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment Rights in Federal Court in Cheyenne, Wyoming so far I have not heard from the Court. The fight goes on P.S. Docket number in my case is 6950 State of Wyo v. Uden Ninth Judicial district court Landon, Wy 82520 Respectfully, Gerald Uden Page 2 of 2 Hamilton College Digital Humanities Initiation Essay