More than meets the eye

At quite a young age I was confronted with a death in the family. At this very first funeral I didn't know how to act. As I stood next to my parents, I noticed my father wasn't crying. He didn't seem to be really upset. After we left the funeral, he was making jokes in the car. I asked my father why he wasn't upset. He asked me:"Why do you think I'm not upset?"I answered him that most people were crying at the funeral and he wasn't. He replied by asking me:" So in order to be upset, you have to cry?" I hesitated for a moment and then answered:" I guess not, I just thought because everyone was crying..."
My father explained to me that just because he hadn't cried, it didn't mean he wasn't upset. "There is no wrong in how people react to a shocking event. You can't always see on the outside, how someone feels on the inside." I never forgot his words.

Throughout the years I have become a person that doesn't show much emotion. I can act tough, but that doesn't mean things don't effect me. Sometimes there is more than meets the eye.

I have been writing with men on death row and life without parole for quite some years now. I have also been always interested in criminal cases and have read many the past few years. I have read trial transcripts, police reports, blogs and stories. In some cases the defendant was innocent and in some he was not. What struck me most that in the judicial system in the States the jury sometimes convicts on appearance and behavior instead of mere facts. In a way this is understandable. But I dont think it is right.

Some of the reasons jury members gave for finding someone guilty:

He seemed indifferent. He didn't look innocent. He didn't show remorse. It was just crocodile tears. He gave me the creeps. He looked like a monster. He had dark, evil eyes. He didn't cry. He seemed so cold. He was making jokes with his attorney. He looked away when they showed the crime scene photos. He just stared at the crime scene pictures. The tears weren't real. He acted guilty. He didn't seem to moarn the loss of his 'wife/friend/son'. He was staring at the floor. He was smiling and waving at his family. He yawned.


I wonder if some jury members had the same thoughts when they convicted Anthony Graves, when they found Joe D'ambrosio guilty, when they gave Juan Melendez the death penalty or when they sentenced Jeremy Sheets to die. After spending years on death row they were found innocent.

Susan Smith made a heartwrenching plea to he alledged kidnappers of her two children at a press conference. She cried and trembled when she told the media how much she loved her children. Her husband had to hold her so she wouldn't collapse. A few months later she herself was arrested for the murder of her children and later on also confessed to the crime. She had fooled almost everyone.

On both sides this shows there is more than meets the eye. Every person is unique and every person responds in their own unique way. Do I get judged by how I react to certain events in my life? Of course. But luckily my life doesn't depend on it.

Let's just stick with the facts.

What if?

I don't do New Year resolutions. I do birthday regrets.
It's that time of year again. In a few days I will turn 35. Regrets.
Regrets. Every tear rolling down my face is a regret. As the tears keep coming, I lose count. Too many regrets.
Some people like to say; Don't do anything you might regret later. As far as I am concerned, that's a load of crap. The biggest regret is the 'what if' regret. Regrets about all the things you could have done, but never did.
Today I let my thoughts wander off to all the 'what if's' in my life, as it is tradition around my birthday. I hope next year there will be less tears. Less regrets.
But now as the tears keep falling, I ask myself over and over again; What if?

Cristian Fernandez, America's youngest 'lifer' ever

Cristian Fernandez is 12 years old. He should be playing outside with his friends. He should be going to school. He should be a lot of things.
Instead he is in solitary confinement awaiting his trial for the murder of his two year old brother. His younger brother died of a fractured skull. Cristian allegedly had beaten him to death. He was brought to the hospital and died of his injuries two days later.
If he is tried as a juvenile, he will be free by the time he is 21. If he is tried as an adult, he will be in prison for the rest of his life and will be America's youngest 'lifer' ever.

Prosecutor Angela Corey says:"We have to protect the public from this young man'.
I wonder how a 12 year old kid can be a young man all of a sudden.

Cristian his arms and ankles need to be shackled, because he is a young man now, not a 12 year old kid.

Cristian didn't have a happy childhood. Cristian's mother was only 12 years old herself when she got him. They were both put in the foster care system when Cristian was two. From the beginning of his young life abuse was an every day occurrence. His stepfather shot himself in front of Cristian and other family members to avoid being arrested on child abuse charges.

But prosecutor Angela Corey doesn't care about that. "The fact that we indicted a 12-year-old in and of itself is a stunning event and a sad event in our prosecutorial lives that we had to do this, but it is the only legal mechanism that we can use to protect the community from this particular defendant at this point".
I wonder if she has ever heard of rehabilitation.

There isn't even a prison uniform small enough for him

His pictures are splattered all over in the media. Everyone knows Cristian. Crisitan only knows his cell 22 hours a day all alone. He is afraid of the dark, but there is no one to comfort him. He is a kid that doesn't know what is going on. He is a kid that might spend the rest of his childhood among adult and hardened prisoners.

But prosecutor Angela Corey doesn't care about that. " The public has a right to be protected from him. It's one where you go, at what point do you step in, so you prevent another murder, and that's how we felt in this case."
I wonder if she sleeps at night.

He is just a kid.


Because the system failed Christian when he was growing up, the system is now charging him as an adult. Does that make sense? Is that fair?

Please sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult

Juan Melendez discusses injustice of capital punishment

“I hope he’s not innocent . . . I hope he’s not innocent . . . I hope he’s not innocent . . .”
Whenever Juan Roberto Melendez saw the lights flickering in his cell, that was the mantra he repeated over and over in his mind. After spending 6,446 days on death row in Florida for a crime he did not commit, Melendez began to tell his story all across the country. On Tuesday, Oct. 4, he gave a lecture that delivered a single, powerful message: The death of one innocent man invalidates the entire system of capital punishment.
“It’s all about details, education,” Melendez said in his speech. “People need to know that it does not deter crime. People need to know that it costs too much. People need to know that it’s racist. People need to know that it’s cruel and unnecessary.”
Melendez was brought to campus as a speaker by a joint effort between Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) Sociology Instructor Susan Palmer and Peterson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences Keith Farrington.
“When you have a speaker that comes to a shared event, it in some ways doubles the amount of work you need to do,” Farrington said. “Susan dealt with the large organization that handles the bureaucratic aspect.”
Melendez spoke at both campuses and attended classes taught by both professors.
“It’s important for people to be realistic about flaws in our justice system,” Palmer said. “In this case, I think it’s important for students to hear a personal story, as opposed to just a statistic. To be able to have some level of empathy, that the system in some cases might be flawed.”
Melendez’s approximately 17-year-long ordeal began when he was arrested for armed robbery and first-degree murder in 1984 and convicted after a week-long trial by a mostly white jury based on the testimony of two police informants who cut deals with prosecutors.
“No physical evidence against me,” Melendez said. “On the defense side, I had four witnesses say that the police informant was a snitch who had a grudge against me, but I had a problem—every witness on my side was from the African-American race. When a black man and a black woman testify for the defense, all of a sudden, the credibility is gone.”
Speaking to a crowd in Olin Hall 130 so large it threatened to violate the fire code, Melendez next described the squalid conditions he faced in prison and the friendship of other inmates who helped him survive by teaching him to read, write and speak English.
One of the night’s most harrowing anecdotes came when Melendez related how close he came to committing suicide, near the tenth year of his imprisonment. He began by explaining how his friends on death row would bribe “runners” from the main prison to bring them garbage bags so that they could hang themselves.
“I took that bag, and I made a rope, and then I put a noose in it. Then I looked at my bunk, and I looked at the rope, and I said to myself, ‘I’d better lay down and think about this a little bit more,’” he said. “I fell into a deep, deep sleep, and I start dreaming. In the dream, I’m a little kid again, doing the things I used to love. I find myself on the most beautiful beach in the world, at least to me. Every time I wanted out of there, every time suicide thoughts came to my mind, I would pray to God, ‘send me a beautiful dream.’”
The tale of a good friend’s death due to staff negligence offered a further glimpse into the disturbing realities of prison life.
“There’s a brother on the ground (from a heart attack or stroke) so we tell [the nurse], ‘He’s not breathing! He needs air!’ But telling the so-called nurse to give mouth-to-mouth to a brother on the ground—you’re wasting your time,” he said. “He died in my arms.”
“I wasn’t saved by the system. I was saved in spite of the system,” Melendez said of the case that finally freed him.
Distraught over the execution of five of her other clients, his longtime attorney handed his case over to a crack legal team, who petitioned for a change of venue based on the fact that the county judge had been Melendez’s first public defender.
Once moved to Tampa County, the case fell into the hands of Barbara Fletcher. After retrieving the case files, Fletcher discovered that the attorney had withheld critical evidence from the court, including a taped confession of the real killer and the corroborating testimonies of 16 witnesses.
Armed with this information, Fletcher wrote a 72-page opinion in which she chastised almost every official involved with the case. Her opinion led prosecutors to throw out the case against Melendez.
“I can honestly say I owe that brave woman my life,” Melendez said.
The lecture ended with a hopeful note, as Melendez described how his fellow inmates applauded as he was released and how he learned to live more richly after being deprived of simple pleasures for so long.
Melendez extended his stay in Walla Walla so that he could attend a dinner in his honor Wednesday evening. Speaking to a group of students from Whitman and WWCC, Melendez predicted that the death penalty would be abolished within the next ten years, and described meetings with recently executed inmate Troy Davis and anti-execution New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
“I told him, you’re the one in power,” Melendez said of Richardson. “You make the changes. I gave him lots of reasons.”
WWCC student Anthony Martinez described being surprised and affected by the speech.
“It was pretty amazing the way he told his story,” Martinez said. “I expected him to tell it sad. He told it in a way like he enjoyed it, and it was cool how he managed to live through it, how he managed to move forward through it.”
The final words of Melendez’s lecture echoed his hopeful prediction, asking the audience to join him in fulfilling his dream of ending the death penalty.
“I have a confession to make: I’m still a dreamer,” he said. “But this dream cannot come true if all of you don’t get involved. You see, you are part of my dream now!”