Loud & Clear, January 1 2007
Greetings to all!
Well I received a wonderful Christmas present. My appeal was denied. I am now waiting to find out who my next court appointed assassin is! Ew-We man! 12 months till my next appeal is due. A new year, a new approach. I have decided to join the hunger strike. I am mentally ready to do it until they have to hospitalize me! As I always say Mind Over Matter. You don’t mind, it just don’t matter! A lot of guys are protesting the conditions here. I applaud them and will assist any way I can. Though me and a few others that are joining them in the strike are also wanting to focus on the law! I am more concerned with what got me here and what is keeping me here! The state of Texas has said that I need to die, as all of my state appeals have been denied! I killed NO ONE, yet they are ready to kill me! Damn I can feel the love! One of the portions of the law, that I am protesting is the Law of Parties. The law of parties in Texas states that if a person commits a felony with another person, they should anticipate that another felony would occur. Okay so I am supposed to read another persons mind!?
Really the law of parties should not even be a factor in my case. I am the ONLY ONE in prison for murder. I have shown that I could not have been the shooter. If no one else got charged with murder, then where is the party at? Hell, it is just a one man show. That ain’t no party. That isn’t even a date! (Though I do enjoy my own company but if I done something with someone, then that would be a party! Or at least a date.) Anyways here is a list of things I am protesting.
#1 The Law of Parties needs to be corrected. No one should be held responsible for another persons actions, more so, to die for them, when the actual killer is not going to die and will get to go home very soon.
#2 In Texas the prosecutors do not have to turn no evidence over to the defense attorneys until trial! How can a lawyer properly defend a client if he can not even get the case file? Channel 11 news did a special on TV about this law. Channel 11 is out of Houston, Texas. In Houston the prosecution would make defense lawyers look at the case file with only a pen and notepad! They would not even allow the lawyer to make a copy of the offense report!! This is in Death Penalty cases! One man was in jail for 6 months before his lawyer was finally given a copy of a statement that shows that he was innocent. Then the lawyer was able to file the proper paper work to get his client out of jail. This is how Texas works. They do not give a damn about justice. As long as someone pays!!! They treat this like a chess game! Let’s see who can win!! But instead of pawns and kings they are using human lives!!! This is 2007 in the United States of America. This is not 1956 Russia!! It needs to be made so that as soon as a prosecutor gets ANY information on a case, they need to make the defense aware within 48 hours! And allow the defense to obtain a copy. Isn’t it supposed to be a FAIR right? Plus we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty! At least that is what the LAW says!!!! This is supposed to be a country that is governed by the rule of law, not the law of rule.
#3 The law needs to be so that the defendant has constitutional protection on the state writ of habeas corpus. This is the most important appeal!! It is often called the Great Writ! Yet this has NO protection based on the constitution. So a lawyer is free to do what he wants. Which is why the state writ has often been, when the worst appeals are filed! The C.C.A. which is the Court of Criminal Appeals just recently put in place rules that will hold the lawyer accountable. If they file a trash appeal they can be removed from being able to do a capital appeal. Okay that is a start. You know what the problem is though? That is just a show! As right after they put that rule in place they denied my appeal. I had an investigator that was smoking crack with witnesses and filed all fabricated statements! The lawyer knew that she had a history of mental illness and plus had been informed before about her drug use and mental illness, yet he let her work on one more case. Guess who the lucky one was?? ME!!!! The C.C.A. was aware of this, yet they still denied me any relief! Damn I feel the love!!! Good ole Texas Justice!! The tax payers paid around $30,000 dollars for my state writ, for what?? NOTHING!!!! They just fueled a drug addicts habit! A change must occur!!!
#4 The current time line for a writ in state court is that it is due 45 days after the state files its response to the direct appeal. (The direct appeal is the first appeal. The defendant files his, then the state responds, once the state responds the defendant then must file his second appeal, even if the first one has not even been ruled on yet! This is to speed things up!) Well, 45 days with a possible 90 day extension!! That is not near enough time! My case has over 15,000 pages in it. My trial record has 8,000 alone! So how can a lawyer go through all that in 135 days? The law needs to change to at least a year! A time line should not matter when dealing with a human life, more so one that might be innocent. Also some type of rules need to be put in place to block prosecutors from seeking the death penalty for political gain! They are supposed to seek it for the worst of the worst. They often seek it for when the best of the best is killed. That is not how it is supposed to be. Some counties only seek death when a cop is killed. I applaud the men and women that serve to protect society. But is their life worth any more than the black crack head on a street corner? NO it isn’t!! A human life is a human life! There is numerous laws in place about political campaign funding! But there is no guidelines for when a prosecutor wants to kill someone! Something must change. Several innocent men have been executed. People focus on race, as an issue. It is more of a class issue. If I had the money, the state had I would not have been convicted! The same, with the appeals. They give the state UNLIMITED MONEY!! Yet, put limits on the defense. Oh Hell, it is just a sorry ass inmate, who cares!
Also, there was a recent article in the USA Today news paper. Titled “INMATE SUICIDE LINKED TO SOLITARY” and guess who is number two in the nation? TEXAS!! Damn for once they wasn’t number one! O-well I guess you can’t always be number one in all the inhumane oppressive categories. But Texas did come in number one in suicide attempts! Cells make the people so crazy they can even kill themselves right!
Texas had 24 suicides in the year 2006! With a prison population of 150,000. The number one cause? Being housed in the same kind of cells that death row is housed in! Texas and California prison systems have created environments where violence is a form of communication. Even among the officers. So in the mid 80’s gangs exploded throughout the system. Numerous people join these, not only as a sense of belonging but a sense of protection. Texas has the HIGHEST cases of inmate prison rape! Over 500 in one year! What would you all do if you lived in a town where 24 people killed themselves in one year and over 500 people was sexually assaulted? There has been numerous stories in the news about people suing T.D.C.J. from not protecting them from prison rape and violence! Then when the inmate joins a prison gang so he has someone to watch his back, the prison official confirms him and then puts him in a prison cell, just as we are housed in on death row and won’t let him out unless he snitches. Well, what happens to a snitch in prison?? See, there is no positive recourse! Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. It doesn’t matter if an inmate acts in a violent manner, or even if he is just a member. If they find out that even a person associates with a known gang member, then that is it! Off to lock down you go. What do you do if you got a life sentence and get locked down? The rest of your life in segregation! That is why suicides are so high! The entire system is broken! Inside and out! My goal is to fix the outside problem, the “Judicial” problem. As that is what gets people in here. Don’t get me wrong. I do not think that if someone does something wrong, nothing should happen to them. We need laws to govern society. But damn, if a man didn’t do anything don’t lock him up! Damn sure don’t kill him!! I say man but it happens to women as well.
I will be sending in an article every day or two days. Another guy had went 27 days and they had not hospitalized him. I will see if I can make it 30 days!! I never claimed that I have always been a law abiding, up standing, citizen. I have done my wrongs in life. Though I never killed anyone! I have grown since I came to death row. I try to be a man of honesty and of virtue. I am honest with people even when that honesty may cause them to turn on me. But, I always try to do the right thing. I did not kill those two men, nor did I intend for them to die. I can prove that I did not do it. So why do I have to die? The struggle must go on! Give me liberty or give me death!!! Well, damn they already gave me death, looks like I have nothing to loose Huh?
Join the struggle
Veni Vidi ViciIn solidarity,
A very hungry,
Clinton young #999447
Polunsky Unit
3872 F.M. 350 South
Livingston TX 77351
Copyright © 2009 by Clinton Lee Young. All rights reserved