It will probably surprise you to learn a prisoncrat, a complete stranger, can send your loved one to some prison halfway across the country for any convenient justification or just because they have a fancy. I know I was and still am after being desaparecido and unceremoniously cubbyholed in an Indiana prison’s administrative segregation.
While I was still serving time in Colorado I made the determination to become a better person and contributive citizen to my community, despite being in prison. In pursuit of these ends I first attempted to enroll in university. When I was told, unequivocally, I was ineligible, even for correspondence courses, because of my custody level. I then decided to propose new, inexpensive programs that could work within the already existing infrastructure. The response was another unequivocal “no.” Frustrated, I filed a formal complaint. After all, how was I supposed to rehabilitate myself if the authorities refused to even let me pay for my own education via mail. I still have a hard time comprehending how a custody level prohibits taking university courses by mail.
Though I had run into several rows of barbed wire fencing, I was undeterred. My persistence earned an audience with Sterling Correctional Facility’s warden. Eventually, I found receptive [??] for some of my program proposals at Sterling Correctional Facility and later, just before being shanghaied, at Colorado State Penitentiary. I even collaborated with Denver University’s Prison Acts Initiative. All things considered, my behavior was model for a prisoner except that I refused to relinquish my desire to pursue a Doctorate in philology or some other branch of the humanities. That stubbornness, more than anything, is what landed me in 24hr lockdown in Indiana.
My obstinacy in pursuing university attendance led from a formal grievance to a federal lawsuit, a 42 U.S.C.S. 1983 civil rights claim. The premise was simple, self-evident, and straightforward. It violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment to discriminate against a subgroup of prisoners while allowing all other prisoners in the state to pursue a higher education. Beyond that, education is a key factor in successful rehabilitation and re-entry which leads to lower rates of recidivism, i.e. a safer community and society. I followed all the rules in prison and federal court and the prisoncrats responsible for the policy remained without legal defense. Or, so I thought.
During the suit, Colorado had transferred me from Colorado State Penitentiary to Sterling Correctional Facility for a period then sent me back to Colorado State Penitentiary. This was their first legal maneuver. Under federal law a controversy must remain live1 at all times or it becomes moot, a non-issue. Shortly after moving me, the defendant prisoncrats moved to dismiss my claim, principally, arguing mootness. Though, here, the law was on my side. I had challenged a system-wide policy. Legal authority said changing my prison within the system would not moot my lawsuit.2 You can guess the next logical step in their gambit.
I did try, though tried in vain. I advised the court that defendants had no legitimate defense, had moved me to produce their mootness argument, provided irrefutable evidence lending my position credulity. I petitioned for a temporary restraining order knowing, on the one hand, as long as I resided in Colorado’s Department of Corrections the prisoncrats would be unable to escape justice. On the other, transferring me out of state was the only way to have the suit dismissed. I said as much in my motion to the court, figuring justice could not possibly turn a blind eye.
If any part of what I write seems reasonable, then you, like myself, are wholly mistaken. Because the federal court informed me, quoting Meachum v. Fano3, that “prison officials have discretion to transfer prisoners for whatever reason or for no reason at all.” Though, I was correct about what came next. I foretold that if the court made such a ruling then, not only would I shortly be sent out of state as a retaliatory and legal tactic, but that the court would be affirming the validity of similar, future machinations being used to deprive prisoners meaningful access to the courts to seek redress of wrongs committed by prisoncrats. Surprise, surprise. Insensibility carried the day and, in short order, I was thirty-six thousand feet above ground, eastward bound.
Sadly, I have yet to learn my lesson. Stubbornness seems to be genetic because I am still fighting to have my case heard. On 18 May 2022, the court dismissed my suit4 for mootness in spite of the fact that Indiana has no legal jurisdiction and all their decisions depend on Colorado prisoncrats’ determinations and approvals5. Since Colorado still calls the shots, I still can not access any offered university courses or any other programs. Being one of those obdurate people who simply will not resign themselves to abuse, I know the struggle has only begun. In the end, this all reminds me of something I wrote Governor Polis. I had asked him to “consider whether Colorado’s penal system believes in redemption. Because it if does and that is its mission, then my transfer is a most demoralizing lesson.”
Though, if I am completely honest, the most surprising of all is how the only forum tasked with vindicating imprisoned citizens’ rights routinely abdicates the responsibility. Then again, civiler mortuus6 is not a legal fiction. Nihil possumus contra veritatem.7
Endnotes:
- S. Constitution, Article III, Section 2, Clause 1
- Abdulhaseeb v. Calbone, 600 F.3d 1301, 1311
- Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 228
- Theus-Roberts v. Williams, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7004
- see Bueno Indiana Code Annotated 11-8-4-1 thru 11-8-4-20, also, Colorado Revised Statute, Article 60 of Title 24, especially 24-60-1601, et seq.; Colorado Revised Statute 17-2-304.
- Latin – dead citizen; United States v. Nesbeth, 188 F. Supp. 3d 179, 181
- Latin – We can do nothing against the truth.
