January 13, 2009

Dear Sis~
Well, old Roy may get some relief yet. You may recall that prison officials wrote my elderly neighbor a DR (Disciplinary Report) for his inability to urinate on command. I wrote up an administrative appeal for him, which went to the warden, and we received a rubber-stamped denial (by the "acting warden", since the real warden was on vacation). I then appealed to Tallahassee, pointing out the salient facts, most crucial of which is that Roy takes prescribed medication twice a day to help him urinate. He's got severe prostate problems and, even with the medication, he strains to pee. Anyway, Tallahassee kicked the DR back to the warden, stating that the warden's response and denial was unsatisfactory, and gave him 15 days to either dismiss the DR or come up with a better reason for denying the appeal. If the warden is smart (or just fair), he'll dismiss the Dr and leave old Roy alone, but I'm not overly optimistic. It's exceedingly rare to beat a DR on appeal; but I utilized a factually strong argument combined with a lot of legal vernacular (I mentioned due process more than once) and, maybe someone up in their legal department smelled a potential lawsuit. Anyway, I'll keep you posted...
Everything here is good. I'm still hard at work on this certiorari petition I'm putting together (it's for a non- death row prisoner, not me). The US Supreme Court grants about 70-80 cert petitions each year (i.e., they agree to hear those cases) out of 15,000 or more filed annually, so you can do the math. No matter how good your lawyers are and how much merit your issues may have, it's next to impossible to get the Supremes to consider your case. Still, you gotta try - that's how law is made...
Just learned that Eddie Bell (aka Dreads) has a February execution date in Virginia; the Supremes just denied his cert petition, so he's through dealing. Virginia wastes no time in killing its death row prisoners; they've perfected the express track to the death house (Bell has been on the row for about 5 1/2 years - the average for Virginia and quickest in America). Something to be proud about, huh?
Love, Bill