TONY SERRA ON FEDERAL PRISON
WIKIPEDIA ON TONY SERRA:
"A graduate of Stanford University and UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, Serra was educated in the 1960s during the rise of the Counter-cultural Movement. He was the subject of the 1989 movie TRUE BELIEVER. He also successfully defended Black Panther leader Huey Newton in a murder trial and represented individuals from groups as diverse, and politically charged, as the White Pamthers, Hell's Angels, Earth First!, and the New World Liberation Front (NWLF).
He has frequently been in trouble with the law for failure to pay taxes, and is known for living a frugal lifestyle and driving a run-down car. On July 29, 2005, he was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison, to be served at Lompoc, and ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution for a misdemeanor conviction of willful failure to pay taxes.
Serra was released from the federal camp in Lompoc, California, in mid February 2007, reporting immediately to a San Francisco halfway house. He was released from federal custody, and the halfway house, on March 13, 2007 after serving out his sentence. Along with three other attorneys, Serra filed a class-action lawsuit seeking minimum wages for himself and other inmates, citing the slave wages as unconstitutional."
Originally published in the December 2006 issue of California Lawyer:
Letter From Lompoc
By J. Tony Serra
PRISONER NUMBER 99943-011
Exactly 30 years ago, I was released from Lompoc Federal Prison Camp. Today I have returned, inmate once again: each time upheaved from an obsessively active criminal law practice; each time the consequence of my own volitional federal income tax resistance. At prison camp in 1976, I was a zealot of fiery political causes; at present, at age 71, I remain of similar persuasion. In essence, both the Camp, in its physical components, and I, in my ideological components, remain the same.
However, much water has flowed under the bridge in the past 30 years, and radical changes have occurred with respect to camp incarceration since I last tread on these grounds, built over an ancient Indian village near Lompoc. This part of central California is historically the gestation area of the state's outdoor-grown flower industry, and Lompoc is surrounded still by a checkerboard of brilliant flower beds. Situated close to the sea between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, the fragrance of saline-laden breezes is pervasive.
I author this letter to inform the conscience of the legal community about the ruinous collapse of prisoner attitude since I was last here incarcerated. The attitude has gone from appreciation for being placed in a "camp" to disdain and hostility toward it. I share the present mood of antipathy for this penal colony. I am silently disturbed and at times outraged.
I am seven months finished with a ten-month misdemeanor sentence. For decades I have failed to pay my federal income taxes, at first on principle and later by indifference. I object strenuously to prison camp because we inmates are not treated humanely. I do not object to my sentence.
The present site is different from the prison camp in the 1970s, but its topographical features remain the same. There is a cruel, arresting beauty: multiple acres, situated on a bluff overlooking lush valleys, ringed by eucalyptus trees, the hub of camp life encased in green lawns and gardens of fecund plant and flower growth. Crows screech, blackbirds flit, cranes glide, and hawks circle the enclosure. Raccoons, ground squirrels, and deer abound freely; morning fog purrs listlessly, and sunsets are fireballs. Thus also was the esthetic of the Camp in 1976.
Outside the perimeter of the central hub of the sleeping barracks, eating hall, library, chapel, and administrative offices lies a softball diamond, basketball court, soccer field, sandy volleyball space, and areas for horseshoes, Ping-Pong, and bocce ball. And beyond the sports areas are the Camp's work facilities: the dairy, the cow pastures, the fields of corn, machine shops, vehicle transportation center, carpentry facility, warehouse, and the giant Federal Prison Industries cable-manufacturing industry complex. The old Lompoc prison camp was similar, but without the inmate industry and with larger grounds and a smaller prisoner population.
At first blush, who would say that such an environment is penal? Who could know that the purpose of the camp is punishment and retribution? It turns out that the administrative guards are harassing technocrats, that involuntary inmate servitude is oppressive, that the forced routine and tedious repetition is mentally toxic, and that prisoners are reduced to automatons. No one who merely looks at the Camp can feel the enmity of the prisoners toward it, their calculated disdain and apathy toward job assignments, their ultimate unified rejection of Bureau of Prison policy and procedure. In 1976 inmates, as a generality, felt graced and privileged by their placement in the Camp; in 2006 inmates stolidly persevere in quiet dereliction.
Why the great difference in prisoner attitude between then and now? In general, our society has largely devolved in its perspective toward crime and outlawed behavior. In the '60s and '70s, we looked for the economic and social factors that produced aberrant behavior; we sought to identify the causative factors of crime and reform those conditions that produced it. For prisoners, it meant rehabilitation-education and job training as in-custody objectives. Today, the sole and articulated prison objective is punishment. In the '60s and '70s, sentences were fashioned to the particular needs and backgrounds of the accused; individualized and particularized "justice" was meted out. Now Draconian, frequently mandatory, and universalized sentences are the norm.
The bar dictates that I cannot practice law for about the first six months of my sentence, but I talk to many inmates as a father to a son about their legal, domestic, and psychological issues. In prison I am still 95 percent "counselor," but not "lawyer" per se. I still collect the secrets of their conscience and their suffering. I still carry their albatross.
Not one prisoner whom I have talked to-and I have talked to hundreds-believes he has been treated fairly by the judicial system. Many young men, who in a past generation would have received probation, have had their youth taken from them-10, 15, 20 years of incarceration, with no parole, no conjugals, no furloughs, no real job training or education. They are harsh and bitter. Their attitude is contagious in prison subculture. Prisoners nowadays uniformly hate the U.S. government. And we sit around and ask why recidivism is on the rise!
The barracks-like dorm where about 175 of us sleep is a cacophony 18 hours per day. Five toilets and three washing machines serve us all. There is activity day and night. We cluster, we talk, we compare our daily events; we share complaints, ideas, discuss news events, and exchange the highs and lows of our mental lives. Most knowledge is derived from the shadows of rumor and hearsay cast in the dormitory of Plato's cave.
I am lucky. I am old, I am a lawyer, I am trusted. I am allowed to move from ethnic group to ethnic group, from youth to aged, from blue collar to white collar. At times I am a guide, at times a confessor, at times the articulator of inmates' concerns. These intimacies have stoked the fires of antigovernment sentiment within me. I will never retire from criminal law practice. I will die fighting for the vanquished.
Lompoc Camp itself supplies further reasons for inmate withdrawal and indifference. The minimum-security facility is described as a "working camp," distinguished from a federal prison by the absence of barbed-wire fences, gun towers, and barred cells. The government contracts with the federal Bureau of Prisons for industrial cable assemblage at Lompoc. The Bureau of Prisons profits hugely from this contract because prisoners are paid pennies per hour.
Prisoners realize that they are a part of a "slave labor" program. They have too much self-respect to be willingly exploited by the government. They hate their job assignments. Further, because presently there is effectively no parole for federal prisoners, no domestic furloughs, no early release, no "good time" credits, there is utterly no incentive to perform exemplarily. Why work hard, conform behavior, obey, and submit for nothing? In prison, there is only the stick, no carrot. Prisoner morale, contrasted to the '60s and '70s, is at a nadir. A wave of prisoner negativity is the prison's most infectious disease.
Thirty years ago my job assignment was garbage disposal-running alongside a huge garbage truck and hauling the cans to it-dumping garbage containers, in essence. Today, I am the camp waterman-a "river," a "rainmaker." I stand five hours per day in a green, janitor-type uniform with an orange hose in hand, nourishing lawns, gardens, and flowers. I blur into a surreal, introspective mental state where time passes timelessly. I receive $19.20 per month as wages for a five-day week of camp watering. In my free periods, I read incessantly and write bad poetry and prose. But, mostly, my still-undiluted legal mind looks and listens to the inequities of prison-camp existence.
Medical attention is a large concern here at Camp. The staff nurse can do little; doctors visit irregularly. Treatment for all variety of ailments is postponed or avoided. Our incantation to each other is, "don't get sick," "don't get injured"; "it will be the end of you." A fellow inmate from Nevada came in about the same time I did, and he developed a foot infection early. He repeatedly went to Medical Service; he repeatedly complained. He wanted to see a doctor. He was obviously limping and in pain. Nothing meaningful was done for about two and a half months. His condition deteriorated-we all saw it. He was finally "rushed" to the hospital to have a portion of his toe amputated. I talk to him every day. He is still limping around. I wish I could sue the whole damn bunch of them.
The mark of a dysfunctional society is the magnitude of its prison population. It is well documented that the U.S. prison system is burgeoning with excess occupants, that allotted resources are shrinking, medical attention is deficient, and prison as a deterrent to crime is a failure. But the final criterion of a dysfunctional prison system is prisoners' attitude toward the resurrection of societal norms. By this measure, we have abjectly been remiss.
In 2006 federal prisoners are treated as discarded cultural rejects. They are banned from the collective gene pool by forced celibacy. [Unlike California state prisons, federal prisons prohibit conjugal visits.] They are eliminated from the evolutionary process. Inmates are plucked weeds, warehoused to wither and perish. It is the action of the creeping, totalitarianism-embracing American government, the "KGB-ing" of the United States.
When I was an inmate at Lompoc in 1976, inmates were younger, the English language was the dominant tongue, and the majority of the prison population was white. There were no "rewarded" government informants at the Camp, furloughs were frequent, visiting was allowed three days a week, skinheads and tattooed weight lifters were few, buses took inmates to off-camp colleges, inmate mail was not read, nor were phone calls recorded. We felt freedom breezes in the incarcerated state. Big Brother was not sadistic and evil.
But now, because of protracted sentences, "gray power" is a visible component of the aging prison population. And self-segregation of the various ethnicities is blatant. Hispanics are the largest segment of the prison occupants; Spanish is the most-heard language. Middle Eastern and Asian languages are also prevalent. Tattooed skinheads of all races represent the preferred appearance. In 1976 we slept in cubicles. We now sleep in foul-odored, overcrowded, double-tiered bunks in military-like barracks. Our mail, our phone calls, our every move is scrutinized; each visitor or telephone-call recipient must be cleared. Visiting is only on weekends. Half the camp inmates have been informants. "Roll ups" to isolation for minor infractions is the rule, not the exception. A poisonous drear smothers the consciousness of the Camp inmate. We are treated like robots, not humans.
It is well known that I am a legal medical user of marijuana. I haven't "medicated" for months! Has such deprivation affected my mental health, my sleep, my esthetics, my philosophic visions? Absolutely. It's like a rare flower has been rudely plucked from my imagination. But I am a "short-timer" and I will survive. What inmates cannot survive is celibacy: no touch of a woman, no softness in their lives, no love on the physical plane, no offspring. I will never relinquish my despise of government for such depravity.
Obviously, these patent transitions from the benign to the primitive have modified my personal prison ideology. Whereas 30 years ago I read Hesse and Castaneda, I now read Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pasternak, and Upton Sinclair. I've gone from religious mysticism to political-oppression realism. Whereas then I was-even while in custody-a hippiefied marijuana smoker, I am now a politicized Socratic gadfly. Then I allowed the process to zenfully flow; now I am resentful and outraged. Then I preached forbearance; now I espouse activism. Being locked in a prison camp for me is like being a doctor locked up in a hospital. I cure rather than facilitate. My mind paces like a caged tiger, and when I am released I promise that I will attack!
Tony Serra's Manifesto for Prison Reform
Based on my stay here, I have strong beliefs about prison reform. I would:
1. ELIMINATE all prison-camp facilities. Send the prisoners home with bracelet monitoring. Camp inmates are nonviolent and no flight risk. Prison camps exist only to furnish involuntary labor for Bureau of Prisons industries.
2. ELIMINATE mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing guidelines; they are excessively cruel and inhumane. Return sentencing discretion to the courts. Reestablish the balance of power in government.
3. MANDATE probation for first-time offenders. Many of the prisoners here are first-time convicts. Their long sentences make them needless martyrs. Long sentences definitely contribute to recidivism. The option of probation will promote resurrection of lawful lifestyles.
4. RETURN parole to the federal prison system. Parole rewards good behavior, provides motivation for reform, allows prison populations to decline, and tests early the ability of the convict to rejoin society. There is no pragmatic rationale for eliminating the parole system.
5. ELIMINATE involuntary servitude. This historical remnant should be severed. Slave-labor camps cannot morally be society's answer to punishing criminals. If prison industry is to continue, pay the inmates the minimum wage; the industry will still flourish.
6. RESTORE conjugal furloughs. The cruelest, most dehumanizing aspect of federal prison life is the forced celibacy entailed within it. The sublimations are horrific. The inmate's essential character is twisted and deformed. Let your imagination smolder on the gruesome substitutes created by prison life. There is no psychological recovery from this privation.
7. ELIMINATE informants from our system of justice. They are singularly responsible for more miscarriages of justice than any other component. The "Judas," the "rat," is universally scorned and isolated at prison camp. The inmate sanction imposed ranges from urination on the informant's bed to assault.
8. RESTORE education and job training. Bring back rehabilitation efforts. The puny efforts at education and job skills are laughable. Most prisoners really care about future success. A prisoner who becomes educated and secures a good-paying job is far less likely to re-offend.
9. IMPROVE library facilities. The so-called law library is a sick joke at Lompoc Prison Camp; it consists of a small collection of outdated codes and cases and a few form books. The remainder of the library is a random scattering of paperback books and old public library discards. Prisoners do seek to further their mental awareness through reading. Why deny us books?
(Thanks to Ivan, a Miami lawyer I know, for the tip on this article, and the stories about the party he attended in Serra's SF office a few years back where PHISH played for about a hundred people.)
Bill,
Does anyone deserve to be in jail? How many crimes does it take? Is it for murder only? Child Moslesters? Drug dealers?
While I dont know, I will assume you have no children. If you did you would appreciate a world where as a parent you dont want more criminals, drug addicts, etc on our streets and in our neighborhoods.
I am a criminal defense attorney and I love what I do. I advocate the best I can for my clients and do all I can to seek justice for my clients.
On the other side I know I have represented some bad people that I would prefer to not have walking our streets. Maybe that is wrong but my family comes first and I want to see them live in the safest place possible.
Personally, I have no issue with you, while I may not always agree with what you say, many times you raise very valid points. On the other side I dont feel SAO is wrong in every instance either.
It took a lot of guts for you to advocate and post this article as I am sure if you ever ran for judge it would be used against you.
Peace
Cy
Cy, You sound like a nice enough criminal defense lawyer, but I sincerely think you miss the point of Mr. Serra's comments and Bill's intent in posting it. Resepct for personal rights has as much to do with us having a "world where as a parent you dont want more criminals, drug addicts, etc on our streets and in our neighborhoods." When we treat those who are less fortunate than ourselves with respect and dignity we will have less crime. Do you truly beleive that we can simply build more prisons and put more people away and solve our social problems? Perhaps you should stop listening to the rich folks who live around, or the conservative news that we are fed,and start thinking a little harder about the poor kids, mothers and fathers, mostly poor, who are stuck within the viciuos grip of our "justice" system. So, Cy, ask yourself if things like indefinite civil commitment, chain gangs, draconian sentences, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the Juvenile Justice System, the lack of available drug rehabs, mandatory sentencing, the lack of inmate services, and all the rest makes you feel better about the future of your children. I too am a proud criminal defense lawyer and I like my friend and Hero Bill I have children, and I am expecting another, I always keep the words of All Americans should heed the words of Martin Niemoller close to my heart and mind: "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me."
Someday, and perhaps we are seeing signs of this change, we will realize that during this nasty period in our nation’s history we forgot the realities that underpin this quote. We seek simply to say to people we don’t like you and therefore we will crush you or throw you into a Gulag and forget you exist so that may beautiful manicured streets will be free of your nasty ilk. How SAD and what a shame for our democracy and Cy can you see how we look more and more like a totalitarian, fascist state.
Great post. Why is it so difficult for people to see what is actually causing the problems to begin with? Our culture is being degraded right before our eyes and we remain blind to the underlying reasons. Again, Really good post.
The problem is that the politicians in Tallahasse or in robes or in SA or PD Offices only care about one thing: reelection. Forget about identifying and curing the root causes. Who cares, pad your pension, go to lunch, and have a couple stiff drinks at night so you can sleep.
And a potent smoke to settle your mind!
A question for each of the five bloggers before my blog. I do not smoke. I vote in every election and believe it is my civic responsibility. I see that our society is eroding away little by little. I am not sure if prisons solve the problems. I am scared for my children's safety. Mr. Serra's article dealt with prison reform, that is after the fact. So after recognizing all your comments, please tell me how you believe you can cure the problems.
Thank you for the comments, while I may not agree, I do appreciate another view.
I do take issue claiming that I only listen to the rich people I live around and conservative news shows. I make a very good living rich I am not. With house taxes, insurance and the costs of childrearing and student loans, the money goes quick. Additionally, I make my own choices and opinions.
I came from a lower middle class background and had to take loans to get through college and law school. There were many people I grew up with who fell to a life of drugs and crime. The phrase that no one likes to talk about any more is "personal responsibility". The Federal Government, State of Florida, the Judicial System didnt make these people do drugs, steal, or harm others.
Homes that I have lived in have been robbed and on many occasions my kids bicycles have been stolen. I hope no one ever has to see the look on their kids face when they learn they have been robbed.
The real problem is a lack of personal responsability which is not instilled by the parents or society as a whole.
This is a great discussion, and I think none of has the market cornered on truth; nor is there a simple answer to any of this. None of us likes crime or takes any glee in the fact that your house may have been burglared, Cy--as, by the way, has mine. However, our society does not reward good behaviour in the same way we punish, and in many ways, glorify bad behaviour. Do any of us think that it is any surprise that the most popular TV shows and music videos glorify gangsterism and boorish conduct. We have been spending trillions of dollars 'lo these past 6 years on war and we spend, by contrast, a fraction on education--and we only do so grudgingly. We have people who can't get proper health care, sex education or life skills. Vocational education in America is a joke. We lag far behind, I think its like 26th, in math and science on a global level. We are leaving behind an entire generation and creating a permanent underclass. Yes, we who blog here are for teh most part the priveledged, but let us not dillute ourselves by thinking each of us can't do more to help right this listing ship. To the person who asked, what is the answer: I respond, we are the answer. We must not allow ourselves to be led to believe that only "I" matter. See we look at thinngs from teh perspective that it is "my" taxes that must be lowered, "my" gas bill that must come down, "my" child's tution that must be lowered--but what of the collective? What of collective sacrifice? You say this generation does not know personal responsibility, but the Baby Boomers have also forgotten about sacrifice. Ever wonder why Floirda has no State Income Tax? Perhaps we should start demanding taht other people's kids also get a good educationa nd have a chance to believe and share in the American dream. Yes, some make it, Cy, but sadly far too many do not, and we just don't give a damn.
Arthur Kirkland: Sorry, Your Honor....Let's get back to Justice. What is Justice? What is the intention of justice? The intention of justice is to see that the guilty people are punished and the innocent are freed. Simple, isn't it? Only it's not that simple. However, it is the Defense Counsel's duty to protect the rights of the individual, as it is the Prosecution's duty to uphold and defend the laws of the State. Justice for All. Only we have a problem here. And you know what it is? Both sides want to win. We want to win! We want to win regardless of the Truth! And we want to win regardless of Justice! Regardless of who's guilty or innocent! WINNING is everything!
Ambulance Blues
"You're all just pissin'
in the wind
You don't know it but you are.
And there ain't nothin'
like a friend
Who can tell you
you're just pissin'
in the wind."
Nyfong sure learned today about Justice
I struggled to read this. Can it be enlarged?
someone should examine Satz's record too
I wonder what kind of justice Gelin will seek when some poor black guy breaks out of First Step Sober and into his house, steals his guitar collection, in order support a crack habit!
this Nyfong thing seems funny. how many times have poor minorities been screwed by withholding evidence or simple overzealous prosecutors who can't see the forest due to the trees? seems like this guy got it because they were rich white kids with establishment families. someone should check on Satz's office's record to make sure poor people without a voice haven't been hurt like these Duke kids were.
Get a home alarm and security cameras. Then get a dog and electrify your fences. It's not going to get better.
Camp inmates are nonviolent and no flight risk
I'm a hardworking, taxpaying professional and I can't get laid. Why should prisoners get more action than I do?
Idealist hippie lawyer can't beat the taxman
Dope-smoking radical who wins unwinnable cases loses his own fight
Tony Thompson in San Francisco
Sunday April 2, 2006
The Observer
For any other lawyer, a jail term would mean financial ruin. For Tony Serra the 10-month sentence he starts this weekend for 20 years of tax evasion will be little more than a much-needed rest.
With his long silver hair in a ponytail, his tie-dyed shirts and his admission that he smokes cannabis every day, Serra, 72, isn't like most lawyers, yet in a 40-year career he has built an unrivalled reputation of being able to win cases others dismiss as unwinnable.
What makes him remarkable is that, in a country where lawyers are among society's top earners, he has no credit cards, savings or bank account and owns no property. All his clothes are from charity shops or the Salvation Army. His net worth is whatever he happens to have in his pockets.
'I was born without a desire for material things,' he says in his downtown San Francisco office, where incense burns and ethnic prints and hand-painted murals adorn the walls. 'I am a child of the Sixties and that ideology - anti-materialism, brotherhood, non-racism - these are the things I still believe in.'
Occasionally Serra accepts payment for his services and uses the money to pay staff and bills, but for the most part he works for free. His client list has included Hell's Angels, environmental activists, Black Panther radicals and members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, which kidnapped Patty Hearst.
This is his third tax conviction. He did not pay in 1971 as a protest against the Vietnam war and served four months in prison. He forgot to pay in 1979 and got probation. His defence this time, apart from that he is 'financially dysfunctional', is that, having never profited from law, he could not possibly be liable for tax.
Serra was so poor that his five children - Shelter, Ivory, Chime, Wonder, and Lilac Bright - were put through college by his older brother, the hugely successful sculptor Richard Serra. The Internal Revenue Service saw things differently, announced that Tony Serra owed $500,000 in back taxes and demanded he be jailed. Many of California's leading lawyers attended court to testify that Serra had been their chief inspiration in taking up law. Having pleaded guilty, jail was inevitable. Serra must also pay back $100,000 at the rate of $1,500 per month.
Jury trials are the exception rather than the rule in the US. The process is expensive and the proceedings so drawn out that most defendants try to strike some kind of plea bargain. 'Most lawyers here don't like trials,' said Serra. 'But I love them. A lot of times I get attached to cases to add leverage. It shows they are serious about going to trial.'
He took on the case of an American Indian facing the death penalty for shooting a police officer in what he claimed was self-defence. Serra got him acquitted. 'In all, I've won four death penalty cases. Most of the time when lawyers talk about winning a death penalty case, they mean they managed to get the sentence reduced to life without parole. When I say I won, I mean the defendants were acquitted and walked out of court.'
In the words of one admirer, Serra 'uses his voice like a musical instrument'. He has juries hanging on his every word. His animated closing arguments often last several hours and regularly include poetry and even song.
'When I graduated I wanted to be a poet. I went around Europe on a scooter then ended up in Morocco with the expat crowd. I fell in love with a heroin addict. It was beautiful, amazing, but very self-destructive. I said to myself, "What are you doing? You're not a heroin addict. Do something else with yourself." '
He began as a prosecutor but was soon disillusioned. 'I didn't want to spend 40 years putting people in cages. I decided I'd work at setting them free instead.'
Serra's other great passion is marijuana. Much of his inspiration comes from what he calls 'cannabis consultations', and he defends as many drug dealers as he can, seeing the war on drugs as a war on civil rights. 'It hasn't stopped me from functioning as a lawyer, so I find it hard to subscribe to the view that it is harmful.'
Having smoked the drug illegally for years, Serra was recently certified to use medical marijuana to ease the pain of two hip replacements. Whether he will be allowed to continue using in prison is something his own lawyer is working on.
Amen! My daughter is in camp because of embezzlement, never in trouble before. She definitely isn't dangerous. Why can't we put people in prison we are scared of, not mad at. Has anyone heard of 35% sentencing for non-violent law being passed or AB110/Gloria Romero on reform of sentence? Help!
the victims of the embezzlement probably think she is dangerous. jail is for those we are afraid of AND mad at. I for one of tired of thieves. look in the mirror MOM you obviously were a crap parent who instilled no morals in your child. as cy said above you and your daughter need a taste of personal responsibility.
9:00 -- What a I heartless thing to say. You should be ashamed of writing such a hateful statement about a person you do not know. I hope you are not a member of the bar, though I fear you probably are given the nature of this Blog, because it saddens me as a memeber of this noble profession. Young people, and for that matter old people, from all types of background get into trouble with the law. Yes, believe it or not there are reasons, and they don't need to be labeled excused, for criminal conduct. For you to slander this mother is WRONG. You should think about what you say you cold-hearted mean spirited person. Perhaps your mother never taught you that if you do not have something nice to say about someone do not say anything at all. Blogs are wonderful because we all get to say whatever we want, but if you are going to post anonymously and slander someone then you are the one in the wrong. Obviously, you did not read Mr. Serra's letter because you miss the point entirely. No one is advocating that we not have prisons at all, but if we must then they should be humane and serve the ends of rehabilitation s well as punishment. Yes, people are mad about crime, as you say, but we don't castrate or draw and quarter people. We are, or at least should aspire to be, a just and humane society that makes every effort to provide dignity in confinement. Please try to be a bit more thoughtful in your comments about others, lest one day you find yourself or someone you love in a custody and you have to swallow hard on your big tough talk.
It's about time someone did look into Satz. I sent him a letter a year ago with copies of the perjured trial testimony and the proof that the alleged victim repeatedly attacked me and admitted to several felonies before and when I finally had to defend myself, but because he was a dirty cop, they wouldn't prosecute him and prosecuted me for exercising my right to protect myself. It is Satz's duty when he knows that perjures testimony was used, especislly when it casts doubt on a conviction, and in this case, exonerated me as a matter of law, according to several sections of the Code of Conduct and his duty to seek the truth. He has blatantly refused to do so. At least the NC AG went after Nifong for this, but neither AG Charlie Crist or AG Bill McCollum will hold Satz accountable. Why is that? The Fla BAr said they have no jurisdiction because he's elected, despite the fact that he is a lawyer. The State Ethics Commission says they can't do anything to compel him to seek the truth and bring forward know perjured testimony and false evidence. Why is that? Are they lying to me, too, or is Satz above the law?
No your just convicted and hence no one really cares about your protests of innocence. learn some personal responsibilty