Okay, you're good, come on out and let's talk, but shhhhh, try to talk quietly. In the middle of the night is one of the rare interludes of time in prison when it's super quiet. you may hear some metal doors clanking shut in the background and/or some distant, incoherent voices of guards gossiping about, what else, yes, the prison life soap opera, but that's about it. It's also during this late night time period when so-called "straight" men aren't so straight after all, but I won't expose anyone and won't get into that subject (wicked grin). keeping to myself and minding my own business has proven to be a successful formula for me surviving, and living, drama-free, in prison, so I think I'll keep applying what works, but I may write a blog - without exposing anyone - about the wild sex culture and lifestyles that are perversely prevalent in prison.
Tink ... tink ... tink-tink (sink dripping), what do you mean what am I doing awake so late? Shhh, stop talking so loud and hurry up and come inside of my cell before someone sees you and we both get in free-world charges trouble. The question I should be asking you, my virtual cellie, is what are you doing popping up like this so late, period? (I glance at the LED display on my clock-radio), it's 12:55 a.m., damn, which means it's almost count time. Look, I hate to inconvenience you and infringe on your civilization comfort zone, but you have to hide under my bunk until this guard passes. Of course I'm serious, now crawl under there. Kind of scoot over more towards the back, yep, just like that. you sure you haven't done this before? (smile.) Now remember, no sudden moves or you'll be having your own permanent cell just like this one (wink).
Okay, you're good, come on out and let's talk, but shhhhh, try to talk quietly. In the middle of the night is one of the rare interludes of time in prison when it's super quiet. you may hear some metal doors clanking shut in the background and/or some distant, incoherent voices of guards gossiping about, what else, yes, the prison life soap opera, but that's about it. It's also during this late night time period when so-called "straight" men aren't so straight after all, but I won't expose anyone and won't get into that subject (wicked grin). keeping to myself and minding my own business has proven to be a successful formula for me surviving, and living, drama-free, in prison, so I think I'll keep applying what works, but I may write a blog - without exposing anyone - about the wild sex culture and lifestyles that are perversely prevalent in prison. I can think of about, oh, a million other things I'd rather be doing today than waking up in a 6' x 10' man-cage (prison cell) for my 6,843 day in a row. (Yes, I'm counting and it's 19 years and 9 months if you're wondering.) Though it pains me to use the words "good" and "best" in the same sentence with prison (ouch), I tell you what, after just enduring another hot, sweaty, Texas summer, it felt damn good to wake up in my cell late on my off day snuggled up under my cozy blanket with a brisk Autumn chill in the air. Yep, it's another day in my Texas prison cell, criminal paradise/purgatory, but today is better than yesterday because I'm one day closer to going home. Today is also better because this is the time of the year when cooler weather, football, holiday meals in the chow hall and the special holiday items that are sold in the commissary make doing time a little easier. What a huge difference a couple of months make. When I was last with you, my chiseled body was covered with beads of sweat and I was bitching about the unbearable heat in the non-A/C environment during what was then the worst time of the year (summer) for us inmates, and now, during the best time of the year, here I am lending a little praise to prison life. I think I've finally gone crazy (smile). Nah, not really, just taking the good with the bad, and with an attitude of gratitude, trying to make the most out of what I do have because I realize it could always be worse. How so?
Well, on my 20-year wrongful conviction prison journey, I've crossed paths with many men, guilty and innocent, who will never step foot on free ground; prison is their permanent earthly home and the only way they'll leave is in a pine box. I've also met many men who can't read or write, so to suffer from mental incarceration while also being locked up physically would be unthinkable to me since my ability to think and learn is how I daily free myself in prison. Then there are those who didn't wake up this morning, who I am sure, had they known beforehand that they were going to die suddenly today would of liked to have brought some closure to certain areas of their life. So as long as I'm still breathing, knowing I have another day - another chance at achieving justice and my dreams - gives me hope. Just so there's no confusion, let me remind you, emphatically, that I HATE prison. Okay, that's been clarified (again). But the harsh reality is I'm in prison, so while I'm here, I have to maintain a positive perspective if I want to survive and gain from this experience is being able to look pass the far more prevalent bad things in prison and to focus my attention on the few good things that exist. I have to focus extra hard sometimes, but I eventually see them (smile). Based on what I listed earlier, there are more good things to focus on right now during the Autumn and holiday season, so this hands down the best time of the year for all of us doing time. When the first weekend of football games kicked-off, though it was still hot weather-wise, that's when the best time of the year officially started for us. Those of us who approached football, either with a passing or passionate interest, are transformed into die-hard sports fans in general, and expert analysts in prison because the hobby of keeping up with football season not only passes the time in an entertaining fashion but it makes the time to go by quicker. Inmates identify fanatically with certain teams on a gang-type level, going to such extremes as getting team logos tattooed on their bodies and using individual victories as temporary bragging rights for "their" team being the best. Others in prison use football season as their "hustle," becoming fervent students of the game and using their intelligence to make a dollar (in commissary items) on boards, or on guys with a weaker football intelligence. Then there are guys like me who love watching football and root for our favorite teams - GO TEXANS! - win or lose. Because I've been locked up since I was 17, there are so many things that I haven't done that I want to do, and attending a pro- or college game is one of them. Whether it's quality or quantity, the meal trays being served these days in the Texas chow halls, as we call them, leave much to be desired. Massive budget cuts and our low social standing in the eyes of most politicians have resulted in our daily calorie intake going from around 2,500 to 2,000 and now it's at 1,800. There was a time when we use to get a dessert once a day and now it's once a week. Whole milk in a carton was replaced with powdered milk. I could go on and on, but who cares what or how much we eat, we're just a bunch of scum-bag inmates. Anyway, shifting back to a more positive angle, our three best meals are clustered at this time of the year, being Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. We are given two trays (a hot tray and a dessert tray), as opposed to our usual one tray, and the heavy helpings are intentionally prepared with more spices and flavor. It's also the only time of the year we get to eat turkey and fresh fruit (apples and oranges) as well, other than the watermelon and cantaloupe that are grown in the fields on most units. Then there are the seasonal "zoom-zooms and wham-whams" (prison slang for goodies) that are sold in the commissaries only during the holiday months that most of us look forward all year to devouring. For example, I've already bought (and devoured) one of the outrageously expensive $6.00 pecan pies, but they only come around once a year and I savored each crunchy bite. Another big hit is the beef summer sausages because there are so many ways to enjoy them, whether it's chopped up in a Ramen soup, on crackers with cheese, or put in some improvised, prison-style gumbo with other ingredients. The prison commissaries are also selling double-dipped chocolate covered peanuts, swiss rolls, cheesecake, dunkin' sticks, and several other items. (We're still waiting on the holiday treat baskets that are loaded with an assortment of goodies.) Well, I would love to stay and chat, but this chilly, comfortable weather is too good to pass up. I think I'll climb in my bunk, get under my cozy blanket and free my cluttered mind through some adventurous, leisure reading. I'm coming up for parole for the very first time in February, so I'm trying to occupy myself to prevent thinking about it because it feels like the closer I get to potentially going home, the harder my time is getting, even during the best of the year. I'm pretty sure freedom via parole would solve most of my problems (obviously), but most of all I want justice (to be exonerated), and I won't stop until I get it. What? Huh? Oh! Hey there, my virtual celly, welcome back. Sorry, I was ‘out there,' my mind was in another place far from this prison, so I didn’t see you when you first approached my bars. I should have recognized you in your bright, civilian clothes. No, you’re not interrupting anything important. Please stay and have a seat on my bunk, in fact, I’m starting to enjoy your company and want you to join me as an accomplice in my deep contemplations that originate from my prison cell. We’re like partners in crime against ignorance and injustices. So you want to know what I was thinking? Are you sure? What if there is trouble or consequences attached to my thoughts? You could be implicated and be put in the cell next to me. “Here is another one who has been enlightened, lock ’em up.” Just kidding, don’t get up and leave just yet. You don’t even have to commit a crime to get locked up anymore, so you might as well take your chances and stay (smile). The thing is, I wasn’t just thinking when you arrived, I had escaped, shhh, don’t talk so lout (whispering tone). That’s right, I escape from prison every day, sometimes several times a day (looking around), even now, and I have escaped with you.
Okay, here’s what I was thinking when you caught me escaping; it seems like every time I open up my USA Today newspaper, or catch a news segment in the dayroom, someone else is being exonerated. The celebratory image is usually of a grateful, gray-haired man, snatched from his prison purgatory on earth and delivered from a life sentence in a cell, in tears or smiling, embracing his layer (savior) in a jubilant courtroom full of camera flashes and reporters/journalist eager to publicize his story, the same reporters who wouldn’t listen to him at one time (trust me, I know). Maybe when it comes to the true frequency of exonerations, I have a selective memory because I was wrongfully convicted myself. I’m partial, I readily identify with every exonerees pain, and I so desperately want to be that man in the courtroom receiving justice, so the occasional exoneration stories stand out to me. While the average person shakes their head sympathetically for a brief moment then continues to channel-surf, I get tears in my eyes that sometimes fall down my face because I’m currently walking every unjust step he walked, in the same black brogan boots, and I know exactly what he, the exoneree, felt to wake up in a prison cell, day after day, for a crime he didn’t commit. But maybe exonerations are frequent and prevalent in our society, where we, the U.S., it has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. It stands to reason that if our society has more people incarcerated then there are more more chances for exonerations. Not according to me, the biased future-exoneree, but according to a judge, though the U.S. accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. also, staggeringly, accounts for 25% of the world’s prison population and “either our fellow Americans are far more dangerous than the citizens of any other country, or something is seriously out of whack in the criminal justice system” (U.S. District Judge, Michael A. Ponsor, of Springfield, Massachusetts, in the Wall Street Journal). You know, maybe the surge in exonerations has nothing to do with the massive prison population in the U.S., and the constant trickle of exonerations leaking from courtrooms is proof that there are some serious ideological, logistical, and procedural flaws in our criminal justice system. Maybe the trickle-down, tough-on-crime promises given by elected lawmakers are strongly influencing cops, detectives, and District Attorney’s to get a conviction with each arrest they make. Granted, most of the time they get it right, they apprehend the right suspect, but how many innocent people fall into the ‘sometimes’ category when they don’t’ get it right? “Um, sorry buddy, you look like the guy, you were in the area, we convinced one witness that it was you, so you’re basically guilty (pat on the back), don’t worry, there’s hope, you could be exonerated 20 years from now, we get it right eventually” (wink). (Erroneous eye-witness identification is an element in around seventy-five percent of all proven wrongful convictions.) So maybe, many detectives and District Attorneys are getting it wrong, multiple times in some jurisdictions and counties. Again, the proof is in the exonerations. Let’s not even discuss the ‘petty’ exonerations, after all, what are 10 or 20 years of someone’s life. Did you know that since 2008, 20 people who were waiting to die one death row have been exonerated? (USA Today, Crime Crackdown Era is Ending, by Kevin Johnson.) Yep, I would say that’s no insignificant example of injustice. You know the state had to have some convincing, physical evidence to let a ‘criminal’ walk free from death row. I have followed enough cases to know the states concede stubbornly to DNA evidence, and even then, they drag out the judicial process so that it takes a generation for someone to be exonerated (Glen Ford spent 30 years on Louisiana’s death row before he was exonerated this year). It makes me wonder, celly … how many men are on death row (or in prison) who don’t have the luxury of having DNA/physical evidence? So their chances of being exonerated are slim to none. I guess they-we ( I have no DNA/physical evidence in my case either-will either die by lethal injection, spend the rest of their lives in prison, or we will be granted parole one day when we’re old. Prior to DNA identification technology, District Attorneys, Judges, and Juries (the judicial system) were looked upon as being infallible. True, they made mistakes, but there was a public perception, to an extent there still is, that District Attorneys were always right when defendants were found guilty in a ‘civilized’ court of law by an impartial jury of their peers. Even that sentence sounds so righteous and professional that if I weren’t a victim of the system I would be naïve enough to believe if someone gets found guilty then there’s probably a great chance they must be guilty. Without DNA identification technologies, nearly all exonerees would still be in a cell or on death row waiting to die. DNA identification exposed decades upon decades of injustices that were taking place in our civilized courtrooms all across America. Acceptable, illegal police practices and standards were exposed. The legal loopholes that death row inmates and lifers slipped through were exposed. Like Greek gods, District Attorneys and Judges were exposed, lowered from their immortal clouds and society discovered that they are people just like the defendants they are prosecuting. Not only did DNA identification lead to the reopening of cases and investigations that revealed that detectives and District Attorneys do make mistakes, but we have learned (thank you DNA) that they have made intentional ‘mistakes’ (if that’s what you want to call them) as they tried to play God with another person’s life. And the reason I mention judges is because many District Attorneys were promoted to the bench on the popular guilty verdicts of someone they helped to wrongfully convict. It’s hard to imagine our criminal justice system existing without DNA and forensic evidence identification methods. People have agendas/motives, science doesn’t. DNA identification technologies and the exonerations they have produced have dramatically transformed the judicial system for the best. New laws and policies have been enacted. Police procedures have changed, such as the way they go about conducting line-ups in some states (see New Jersey). District Attorney’s, are not because morals but because of science (DNA), are under more scrutiny to be right and are under less pressure to convict the ‘most likely’ suspect. Our judicial system is evolving in a positive direction with science and technology. However, with the seemingly daily exonerations we see on television and the innocent people like me who still languish in a prison cell, there is still a lot of work to be done towards convicting the right suspect and preventing the wrong person from being wrongfully convicted, especially in cases like mine where there is no DNA/physical evidence. There’s still a lot of work to be done when a man like Glen Ford’s exoneration compensation was capped at $250,000 by Louisiana laws after he spent 30 years on death row. Not only did they take forever to exonerate him but now Louisiana’s unfavorable exoneration laws won’t properly compensate him. How sad. What an insult to the so called justice they finally did give him. We have made considerable progress towards thwarting wrongful convictions, but as a society super-sensitive to locking people up, we have a long way to go, all you have to do is turn on your television, open the newspaper, or search online and you will see the latest in a string of exonerees. How does a man wake up in a prison cell smiling and feeling good about his life, especially after waking up 19-plus flat years in the same fortified brick and metal world for a crime he didn't commit?
The man I'm referring to is me, and though there isn't one answer or reason for my consistent optimism - I don't know how I do it, I just do - on most days, including today, I have a genuine, positive attitude and expectation to be living another day, even in a place that I despise with a passion, probably because I realize I'm one day closer to getting out of here and moving on with my life. I see you made it back, don't tell me you couldn't get enough of being creatively confined to this virtual prison cell. If for some intriguing, curious reason you have become instantly institutionalized after only your second day to my Texas prison cell, shhh, don't tell anyone except everyone in the world outside of Texas because I know my state, if certain policymakers find there's a certain uptick in demand for higher confinement figures, I swear, they will go on a prison building binge or outsource to money-hungry private prisons with capacity quotas until everyone is rich and safe in the name of 'reducing crime.' So if you will, before you enter into my cell, look down the tier, do you see any overzealous, opportunistic detectives or District Attorney's insight, you don't, okay we're safe, you're free to enter into my virtual cell. I agree that true criminal acts need to be prosecuted, and I realize there will never be a perfect judicial system, but in Texas, the percentage chances of a wrongful conviction are, for some reason, significantly higher here, so I would hate for them to try to pin an unsolved crime on you as they did to me when those two deceptive detectives way back in February of 1995 put me into the back of their squad car for 'questioning.' You may think it's impossible to be locked up from behind the safety of your computer screen, but I wouldn't put nothing past a state who has made an art and science out of locking innocent people up.
The Texas county I was tried, wrongfully convicted, and sentenced to 40 years in, Harris County, is the indisputable Death Row Capital of the civilized world, having both put and had successfully executed more people on Death Row than any other state and civilized country. Harris County's crime lab was exposed several years ago by the national media and the federal government for their careless, inexcusable mishandling of DNA and other physical evidence. A Harris County Sheriff and DA were caught red-handed with offensive, discriminatory racial jokes in their computers from emails they were sharing with other officials. Since the advent of DNA science and technology to identify people by their genetic fingerprint, there have been more exonerations from people sitting in Texas prison cells-most with over 20 flat years done-than in any other state. Do you see a pattern? As a 17-year-old with a new-boot court appointed attorney, Harris County was where I was railroaded with a 40 year sentence 19 years ago. Unless I was a millionaire and able to hire the best lawyers money could buy, I didn't stand a chance beating a crooked Texas system who obviously had a lot of practice at wrongfully convicting innocent people. Tell me how a white kid (me) get found guilty when ALL the original statements given by the victims and witnesses (even the 911 tapes) said the suspects were three BLACK MALES? Do you know that back then (1995), Texas laws did not allow my attorney to have a copy of the police report? He was only allowed to look at it. I heard the laws have since changed. When I say EVERY victim and witness said, in their original statements, that the suspects were three BLACK MALES, I am not exaggerating. I have to tip my hat to Harris County because this just shows how good they are at what they do and the "perfect" system they have created to lock people up, guilty and the innocent, for a really long time. The fact that Texas leads the nation in wrongful convictions, and thus exonerations, shows that whatever tactics and strategies detective/District Attorneys are using to notch a conviction are working. Once the truth does come out, 20 or more years later, then it's too late, a person, like me, has paid a criminal debt to society with the best years of our lives, while a young hot-shot detective or DA used the wrongful conviction to get re-elected, promoted, or to advance their careers, again, all of it in the name of 'reducing crime.' I am writing this blog from a prison cell, so it's apparent I didn't give those two detectives the answers they wanted back in 1995. When they slapped the cuffs on me, I had no idea that I would begin the longest, most difficult journey of my life that would consist of me doing 19 calendar years in a prison cell. Texas, Harris County specifically, is responsible for my wrongful conviction and will soon be responsible for giving me justice one day soon by exonerating me. Even with my wrongful conviction and all I've been through, I believe the journey I have traveled all these years behind prison fences/walls is for a reason, and I probably wouldn't change the course of my journey if I could. Now you think I'm crazy (smile), no, I haven't gone insane (not yet), but I may be a little crazy, everyone is these days. If discovering my ultimate purpose in life from my most painful life tragedy makes me crazy then put me in a straight-jacket because I don't think I would of become the resilient, educated man I am today without enduring and fighting my wrongful conviction. Let's Keep up the Fight, Shawn Ali by Shawn Ali There you are, you finally arrived. What took you so long? Oh, never mind, the point is, you made it into my virtual prison cell on the Eastham Unit, where Bonnie helped Clyde escape from prison many years ago. Who would have thought you could be locked up from the comfort of your home through the medium of your computer screen, let’s call it, vicarious virtual incarceration. Anyway, please enter into my hopeless abode amid the prison industrial complex community, where I am full of hope that the dawn of a new, free day in my life is in my imminent future. Now step this way, ooh, careful, watch your stereotypical step, you may trip over a reputed rapist who deserves to do every day of his sentence, or you may stumble serendipitously into a miscarriage of justice like my own wrongful conviction, where even one day is too long, and so many incarcerated extremes in this place. I would “welcome” you, but after spending the past 19 years of my life in what is basically a concrete and steel bathroom with the traditional Shawshank Redemption metal bars, I wouldn’t wish this existence on my worst enemy. Plus, I don’t want you to get too comfortable here with me, because you, as crazy as it may sound, may start liking it here (smile).
Do you know I’ve actually had “cellies” who were not looking forward to going home because they had a better quality of life in prison than in the ‘free world’? What’s sad is they are the ones who seem to make parole. Oh well (sigh), please have a seat next to me on my bunk – no, no there, that’s my soul mate’s seat, sit right here and let me begin acquainting and assimilating you into my crazy, unjust prison experience. Hello civilized stranger (smile), my name is Shawn Ali Bahrami, but I go by ShawnAli because I have dreams of being a rap star one day; however, to the state of Texas, I’m offender #747451. I’ve been an unwilling ward of the state since I was 17 years old. At 17, I was not allowed to vote, not allowed to purchase a gun, not allowed to sign a lease on an apartment, not allowed to buy liquor, not allowed to enjoy any of the so called benefits of being an adult, but in pragmatic Texas, I was old enough for them to lock my ass up in an adult prison system, and not just lock me up, but to convict me for a crime I did NOT commit, and on top of that I was given a generous 40 year sentence. (To learn the details of my wrongful conviction, refer to the section on the www.FREEShawnAli.com website with my innocence story.) I’ve been in prison more than half my natural life, 17 years in society, 19 years in prison, but I’ve been in a prison environment so long it now feels like what my mind recalls of the free society is an invention of my fertile imagination, something that I experienced somewhere in the matrix. Sometimes I feel like tough-on-crime Texas convicted me in my mother’s womb, and I was born in a prison cell because waking up in this cell every day is all I know … physically. However, where the broken Texas legal system succeeded in locking up my body, they failed miserably in trying to confine my mind/spirit, because on the inside, I navigate, and through this blog, articulate, an immeasurable distance of creative freedom that far exceeds any free footstep any person takes on earth, free or incarcerated, much less on a noisy, traffic-jammed, carbon dioxide polluted city street. So you see my new friend, this more than a virtual prison cell, this is a digital megaphone where my inward, painful screams for justice can be heard from my tiny cell all across the world until someone listens. I won’t stop my written screams, won’t stop believing, won’t stop fighting, here I stand, and any time you want to join me in my prison cell to liberate your mind, you’re most welcome. |
AuthorI was wrongfully convicted at the age of 17 and I've spent the past 20+ years of my life in prison. Archives
July 2018
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