Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

cult!” They would then show clips of me speaking about something completely unrelated to anything they had said. That wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst was when the prison administration decided to teach me the folly of my ways.
    People in prison have their own language, and it takes a while to grow accustomed to it. For example, “Shoot me a kite” means “Don’t discuss business out loud—write it down and pass it to me.” “Catch out” means “Shut up and leave, or violence will soon follow.” “Reckless eyeballing” means you’re looking at someone a little too closely. “Ear hustling” or “ear popping” means someone is trying to listen in to your conversation. “Shakedown” means the guards are coming to destroy your cell in search of contraband. A shakedown is how my lesson started.
    I was listening to the radio one day not long after my arrival when two guards came to my cell and barked out, “Shakedown!” They began knocking my things to the floor and walking on them, deliberately trying to destroy what little property I was allowed. My family had sent photos to me, along with a few books and the radio. One of the guards pulled a knife out of his boot and tossed it onto my bunk, then called for a camera. He took a picture of the knife and wrote a report saying he found it in my cell. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought being set up for things I didn’t do would stop once I got to prison. I was wrong.
    One night at almost twelve o’clock I heard keys jingling in the hallway and knew they were coming for me. Two guards came into my cell, handcuffed me, and took me up to the warden’s office. One guard held me up by the hair as the warden choked me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he ranted and raved about how “sick” I was. One of the guards kept punching me in the stomach while repeatedly asking, “Are you going to tell anyone about this? Are you?” I had never been subjected to anything like that in my life. I thought adults were that barbaric only in movies.
    They threw me in “the hole.” The hole is a group of cells located at the back of the prison, out of sight and hearing of everyone else. Temperatures can reach nearly 120 degrees in the summer, and it’s even darker and filthier than the rest of the prison. You aren’t allowed to have anything when you’re in the hole—no toothbrush, no comb, no deodorant, and no contact with the outside world. Its purpose is complete and absolute sensory deprivation. If sent to the hole, you spend a minimum of thirty days there alone, no matter what your offense. Beating someone half to death or making a homemade lampshade to go over your light both carry the same penalty: thirty days in the hole. The only thing that differs is how you’re treated while you’re back there.
    While I was in the hole, I was beaten, starved, spit on, threatened with death, and subjected to various other forms of abuse, both large and small, all at the hands of guards. The reason? Because the warden said I had made the ADC look bad in the interviews I was doing.
    It happened more than once during this particular episode. On three more occasions, guards came into my cell and beat me. Once I was chained to the bars of the cell while three of them took turns. Another time it was five of them. I was told that they planned on keeping me in the hole for a very long time. Every time the thirty days were up, they could just give me another thirty for something else. What saved me was that word leaked out to the rest of the prison, and a deacon from the Catholic Church heard about it. He told the warden that if it didn’t stop he would start telling people what was going on. They didn’t want to risk it, so I was taken out of the hole and put back into the barracks.
    The thing about the prison administration is that they will abuse you as long as you’re quiet. The only way they can’t hurt you is if someone is paying attention. I started talking to more people, doing more interviews, because I knew only that would make them leave me alone. They can’t afford to harm you if the world is watching. They could not drag me into a dark alley if I had a spotlight shining on me. I even filed a lawsuit against the warden and some of the guards responsible.
    In the end the suit was a waste of my time, as they once again chose the attorney who would represent me. I saw him once, about ten minutes before the “trial” began. He