MY FIRST DAY IN PRISON
On May 12, of 1997, I was sentenced to LIFE
without the possibility of parole: MCL 750.316. Judge Stephen B. Miller told
The Court, that although he had received numerous letters from people who
believed I was a good person and I didn't get a fair trial, the person those
people wrote about in their letters wasn't the same person the prosecution
exposed during trial. Judge Stephen B. Miller proclaimed the mountain of
evidence against me couldn't have been more clear. He is also the judge who
told The Court, while directing his comment towards me, that "out law is
based on a long line of Anglo law." What was that Anglo shit about? He
didn't have to emphasize that on record... we all know that American Courts are
White Courts. Damn... why couldn't I get half a fair trial then? I am half
white.
Nevertheless, after I was sentenced and escorted out of the courtroom, I was immediately hurried back to an isolation cell in segregation: "The Hole." Why the isolation? I guess I was on suicide watch. You can't go and kill yourself... thus deriving The Michigan department of Corruption their $30k stipend of taxpayer retribution.
That night I sat alone in my four-cornered cell, staring at the semen stained steel door. Perverted prisoners often masturbate while stalking female guards through the cell door's shatterproof glass window. Every jail or prison cell you're thrown into is always polluted with bio-hazardous human waste
Even though I was exhausted, how could I sleep? In the morning I'd be taken to Jackson State Prison. Was i prepared for a LIFE sentence? I told myself that "I better be" because tomorrow I'd be "Behind the Wallz."
Nevertheless, after I was sentenced and escorted out of the courtroom, I was immediately hurried back to an isolation cell in segregation: "The Hole." Why the isolation? I guess I was on suicide watch. You can't go and kill yourself... thus deriving The Michigan department of Corruption their $30k stipend of taxpayer retribution.
That night I sat alone in my four-cornered cell, staring at the semen stained steel door. Perverted prisoners often masturbate while stalking female guards through the cell door's shatterproof glass window. Every jail or prison cell you're thrown into is always polluted with bio-hazardous human waste
Even though I was exhausted, how could I sleep? In the morning I'd be taken to Jackson State Prison. Was i prepared for a LIFE sentence? I told myself that "I better be" because tomorrow I'd be "Behind the Wallz."
I envisioned shank fights on the yard and
having to fend off predators because when a man is sentenced to serve a prison
sentence, what he's actually being sentenced to is a life of brutal violence...
extortion... rape... and total dehumanization. There is no "safe
place" in prison. Protective custody can't truly protect you. Every day,
when that cell door opens, you're living "The Hunger Games."
By the time I finally closed my eyes, morning had arrived. Shackled and cuffed, I sat in the back seat of a police transport, as two officers shuttled me and one other prisoner down I-94 from Battle Creek to Jackson, Michigan. How many times had I driven down that same stretch of highway? We passed by the Albion exit. I took in my home town for the last time.
The walls of Jackson State Prison are big enough to crush the spirit of a giant. Once inside the receiving entrance, all of us who arrived that morning were lined up and stripped naked. My first prison striptease: take off your clothes, spin around, spread your ass open. We were filed through a tunnel of showers, then herded around a cramped labyrinth of receiving stations: picture taken, blood drawn, state clothes issued. The muffled bark from men locked behind the iron barred cells of Michigan's deadliest prison grew louder as we progressed. Anxiety built with each step forward. The dehumanization began.
The last thing I was handed was a bedroll: two sets of sheets, two wool blankets, two towels, and two wash rags. I was instructed to proceed through "that door" and "the officer at the desk will tell you where you lock." When the door opened, the sound was deafening. Three corrections officers were leisurely sitting around a desk chatting, numb to the surrounding hysteria. I was on some sort of platform or staged off area, where corrections officers controlled the cell doors and squawked on the intercom system throughout the Cell Block.
By the time I finally closed my eyes, morning had arrived. Shackled and cuffed, I sat in the back seat of a police transport, as two officers shuttled me and one other prisoner down I-94 from Battle Creek to Jackson, Michigan. How many times had I driven down that same stretch of highway? We passed by the Albion exit. I took in my home town for the last time.
The walls of Jackson State Prison are big enough to crush the spirit of a giant. Once inside the receiving entrance, all of us who arrived that morning were lined up and stripped naked. My first prison striptease: take off your clothes, spin around, spread your ass open. We were filed through a tunnel of showers, then herded around a cramped labyrinth of receiving stations: picture taken, blood drawn, state clothes issued. The muffled bark from men locked behind the iron barred cells of Michigan's deadliest prison grew louder as we progressed. Anxiety built with each step forward. The dehumanization began.
The last thing I was handed was a bedroll: two sets of sheets, two wool blankets, two towels, and two wash rags. I was instructed to proceed through "that door" and "the officer at the desk will tell you where you lock." When the door opened, the sound was deafening. Three corrections officers were leisurely sitting around a desk chatting, numb to the surrounding hysteria. I was on some sort of platform or staged off area, where corrections officers controlled the cell doors and squawked on the intercom system throughout the Cell Block.
"Kehoe, we've been waiting for
you," an obscenely overweight officer said with a smirk on his face. He
handed me a Michigan Department of Corrections "Rule Book" and a
piece of paper with "4-64" written on it. "Have a nice stay,"
he added as he motioned for me to enter Cell Block 7 of Jackson State Prison. I
felt like a gladiator entering The Colosseum.
I descended one flight of steel grated stairs to the "Base,'" or bottom floor. A gauntlet of hundreds of cells lined each side of me, four galleries tall. The noise was nerve rattling. The reek of human confinement was nauseating. Insults and catcalls rained down on anyone who gave off the impression of being week. Chest out, chin high... I mugged my way through.
Over the roar of rattling cages I heard someone calling my name form the third gallery, "Huevos... Huevos! Whaddup my nigga?" It was Turk, from the East Side of Detroit. I used to sell trees to his younger brother. A few more steps down the rock and someone else hollered, "Huevos, I was in the county with your boy Mike Ski!" I gave him a head nod and kept mobbin'. Then I heard another call, "Kehoe, my girl Monica from Lansing, says you know her and her girls.' No idea who he was, but... okay. "That's Kehoe?" I heard some random voice ask, "Damn, he's changed it up again."
That, was my first day in prison. There has never been hostility over my case from other convicts. Who I was out there continues to be who I am in here. Any hostility, has always come from the staff... and that only comes from a few ignorant pieces of shit. I've had corrections officers open my cell door, peek inside and tell me, "I just wanted to see what you look like." WTF? Or the guard who just blurted out that he "didn't like my crime." Like I gave a fuck. However, I've also had plenty of officers who've been extremely vocal about their belief in my innocence. Which is surprising. But as far as other convicts go... I've always got luv from the prison population.
I descended one flight of steel grated stairs to the "Base,'" or bottom floor. A gauntlet of hundreds of cells lined each side of me, four galleries tall. The noise was nerve rattling. The reek of human confinement was nauseating. Insults and catcalls rained down on anyone who gave off the impression of being week. Chest out, chin high... I mugged my way through.
Over the roar of rattling cages I heard someone calling my name form the third gallery, "Huevos... Huevos! Whaddup my nigga?" It was Turk, from the East Side of Detroit. I used to sell trees to his younger brother. A few more steps down the rock and someone else hollered, "Huevos, I was in the county with your boy Mike Ski!" I gave him a head nod and kept mobbin'. Then I heard another call, "Kehoe, my girl Monica from Lansing, says you know her and her girls.' No idea who he was, but... okay. "That's Kehoe?" I heard some random voice ask, "Damn, he's changed it up again."
That, was my first day in prison. There has never been hostility over my case from other convicts. Who I was out there continues to be who I am in here. Any hostility, has always come from the staff... and that only comes from a few ignorant pieces of shit. I've had corrections officers open my cell door, peek inside and tell me, "I just wanted to see what you look like." WTF? Or the guard who just blurted out that he "didn't like my crime." Like I gave a fuck. However, I've also had plenty of officers who've been extremely vocal about their belief in my innocence. Which is surprising. But as far as other convicts go... I've always got luv from the prison population.
