JW: As for Gary, his prescription medications have been withheld, all of them some of the time and some of them all of the time, and since his illegal transfer and other endless ongoing abuses, he has not been allowed to see a doctor, not even a prison doctor. Not once, despite the BOPers' classification of Gary from the inception of his imprisonment as "chronic care" and their written statements in his medical records going back at least until July of last year that they suspect he has cancer and that he should be "observed" for "suspected malignant neoplasm." Even when Gary's lawyer has spoken directly with two of the prison employees responsible for Gary's care, informing and inquiring about the withheld prescription medications, they have done nothing. Under any standard, the BOP falls far short of providing medical care that avoids violation of the Eighth Amendment.
JB: So, why does this happen? How can they behave this way?
JW: The answer, I believe, lies in the incestuous relationship between the BOP and a disinterested and corrupt federal judiciary, with judges directly participating in the "deliberate indifference" toward abuses of prisoners' civil rights. Simply put, they just don't care. Judges - at least in our experience - seem to enjoy satisfying their and the public's bloodlust, handing out harsh, excessive, abusive sentences in violation of due process and equal protection requirements under the ignored constitution.
Judges in general cater to the BOP, handing them an endless supply of prisoners - victims to be abused and experimented on. That also converts to federal tax dollars flowing to the BOP, and an ever-growing workforce of unionized federal jobs for prison employees. The BOP's part of the deal must be to keep the prisoners "out of sight, out of mind" - and, importantly, out of court, serving the interests of both the BOP and the judges, neither of which want the public to know what they do to prisoners.
The prisoners' plight must not be known, their voices must not be heard, their silence is required! Forget the First Amendment. Forget all of them. Especially, no due process and no access to the courts for redress of grievances. Not for prisoners. And not for their families. And to be certain they keep the public in the dark, the BOP uses unlimited tax dollars for "public relations" - lying to the public about what they do to prisoners and their families, with the complicit federal judiciary refusing to fulfill their sworn duty to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
I have come to understand that judges - at least, all of the federal judges we have encountered - are corrupt and lazy. It seems very clear to me: "Congress shall make no law " abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people " TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES ." Allowing prisoners and their families to access the courts for redress of grievances as specifically guaranteed by the First Amendment would increase judges' caseloads, so they have a vested interest in keeping prisoners and their families out of court. Perhaps they justify this as, after all, it's only prisoners and their families being violated; it is, in fact, the Constitution being violated as well. Judges are also responsible for the "land of the free and the home of the brave" imprisoning more of its people than any other country, with over two million Americans currently imprisoned, with effectively no First Amendment rights.
Even those who don't care about prisoners should care about The Truth. With recently exposed scandals (Benghazi, IRS-targeted investigations, DOJ seizures of reporters' email and telephone records) making it clear we cannot trust our government to tell us the truth, more than ever, we need the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment, to allow and encourage the light of public scrutiny and holding the government accountable, particularly for redress of grievances against our government and making known the conditions of confinement in our federal prisons.
Yet judges don't want that. They don't want to know what happens after they slam the gavel and prison doors. They don't want any scrutiny of what they do and they don't want to scrutinize the actions of their fellow judges. In fact, even when federal judges are caught and prosecuted for their corruption, they have no worries, knowing they will face a fellow judge for sentencing, one who will, at best, administer a slap on the wrist, nothing comparable to what non-judges experience.
For one example, see this story [here and here ] about a Georgia federal judge who pled guilty to felony charges after being caught involved with cocaine and prescription drug abuse, firearms violations, and theft, along with a stripper with a felony record; his felony plea was then reduced to a misdemeanor by another federal judge who sentenced him to 30 days in prison.
JB: Tell us about your experience with judges so far.
JW: The first judge in Gary's case should have recused himself based upon his long-term litigation with Jefferson County resulting from his refusal to pay the occupational tax charged to "commoners". As president of the commission, Gary had authorized suing the judge. After some of his errors were brought to public attention, that judge set aside Gary's conviction, recused himself and specified his replacement, known for his harshness to defendants.
The second judge - Scott Coogler - was even worse. Nominated for the federal judiciary on the recommendation of Senator Richard Shelby, Coogler's wife Mitzi then made their first federal campaign contribution ever (as long as such records were kept) - along with her co-workers - to Shelby's campaign. (See page 17 of this report .) That should have raised some questions.
But the reason Coogler should not have been involved with Gary's case had to do with other campaign contributions, being those to Gary, and Mitzi Coogler's involvement in those. You see, Mitzi has long been "employed" by a PAC-man. One of Alabama's most active PACs was Tusco-PAC, run by Mike Echols, Mitzi Coogler's employer. Tusco-PAC was a major contributor to Gary's campaigns, leading to Gary and I both having an unpleasant interaction with Mitzi.
We had no idea, of course, that she was married to a federal judge - the judge who would ultimately impose an outrageous 10-year sentence on Gary - when she called and said Echols would be billing us a percentage of the PAC's campaign contributions to Gary. When she first contacted Gary, he told her no, and referred her to his campaign manager - me. When she called me, I was, frankly, shocked. I said, no, I don't think that's legal, it sounds like you are asking for kick-backs, we are not going to do that. And we didn't.
Tusco-PAC's involvement and contributions to Gary's campaigns were well-known, both through public disclosures and extensive media coverage, mostly negative media coverage directed toward both Tusco-PAC and Gary, so there is no way Coogler was not aware of his wife's and her employer's connections. And he may have enjoyed the opportunity to visit his own idea of "justice" on us after we had dared to question and refused to play the PACman kick-back game, as his wife proposed.
Zelda, model who inspired White pets to dress as prisoners for Halloween by Clickortreat.com
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