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  Caged to Kill

  Lawyer David Thompson Legal Thrillers Series Book 2

  Tom Swyers

  Copyright © 2019 by Tom Swyers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, businesses, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Hillcrest House Publishing

  New York

  ISBN: 978-1-941440-04-9

  For those who have served or who are serving sentences in solitary confinement without remedy.

  Please forgive us for torturing you.

  Epigraph

  Any imposition of solitary confinement beyond 15 days constitutes torture.

  —Juan E. Méndez, United Nations special rapporteur, August 5, 2011.

  First thing you notice is that it’s anything but quiet. You’re immersed in a drone of garbled noise—other inmates’ blaring TVs, distant conversations, shouted arguments, I couldn’t make sense of any of it, and I was left feeling twitchy and paranoid, I kept waiting for the lights to turn off, to signal the end of the day. But the lights did not shut off. . . . I sat with my mind. How long would it take before Ad Seg [solitary] chipped that away? I don’t know, but I’m confident that it would be a battle I would lose.

  —Raemisch, Rick, Former Executive Director, Colorado Department of Corrections, "My Night in Solitary." The New York Times, February 20, 2014.

  Senator Gustavo Rivera: “Do you know a gentleman by the name of Rick Raemisch? Rick Raemisch is the Corrections Commissioner for the State of Colorado.”

  Anthony Annucci: “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, Colorado.”

  Senator Gustavo Rivera: “One thing that I would suggest as he did, he actually spent 24 hours at a SHU [solitary housing unit].”

  Anthony Annucci: “Yes, I know that.”

  Senator Gustavo Rivera “And I would suggest that’s one of the things maybe you should do as well . . . .”

  Anthony Annucci: “It would probably be the best night’s sleep I’d had in a long time.”

  (Laughter)

  —New York State Joint Budget Hearing on Public Protection (January 30, 2018) (conversation between New York Senator, Gustavo Rivera, and the Acting New York State Commissioner of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Anthony Annucci).

  Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgments

  Ch. 1: The Killdeer Connection

  Preface

  Help Free William Blake from Solitary After 32 Years

  I sincerely hope that you enjoy Caged to Kill. I think it’s a gripping thriller and I believe it’s the best novel I’ve ever written.

  At the same time, I hope that the story will have you thinking about solitary confinement as a form of punishment in the United States and elsewhere.

  As the epigraph to this book suggests, there is much work to be done in the United States on solitary confinement practices. On the one hand, you have a few states that are taking a leadership role in limiting the role of solitary because of its inherent danger to inmates, our neighborhoods, and prison personnel. At the other end of the spectrum, you have states that joke and laugh about solitary like it’s no big deal.

  Mr. William Blake inspired me to write Caged to Kill and his experience in solitary is no laughing matter. It is the embodiment of much of what is wrong with solitary confinement policy today. Mr. Blake has served thirty-two years straight time in solitary confinement after he was convicted of killing a police officer and wounding another in 1987, when he was twenty-three years old. What he did was horrible and he knows it. That’s why he’s essentially serving a life sentence. The injustice for Mr. Blake is that while he was sentenced to a life in prison, he was not sentenced to a lifetime in solitary confinement. And yet he has not served a single day of his sentence outside of solitary confinement. For over three decades, he has been housed all alone in a closet-sized cage for twenty-three hours per day. The United Nations has cited his treatment as an example of torture. In 2013, the United Nations Special Rapporteur concluded that the rights of Mr. Blake “to be free from torture have been violated, and that the practice of solitary confinement in New York State violates the international obligations of the United States of America.”

  I crossed paths with Mr. Blake two years ago when he desperately sent out a batch of twenty random letters to attorneys in New York looking for legal help to get him out of solitary confinement. There are about 177,000 lawyers in New York and I haven’t practiced a day of criminal law in my life. I knew nothing about Mr. Blake and, because I’m not a famous author, judge, or attorney, he knew nothing about me. I wrote him back and explained that as a solo practitioner, I was ill-equipped to devote the necessary manpower and resources on his behalf in a protracted legal battle that would last years and would then likely involve years of appeals. Over the course of the next few letters, I told Mr. Blake that I might be able to raise awareness of his plight by writing a work of fiction about a character dealing with the effects of solitary confinement. Mr. Blake agreed to help. We began to correspond, and a story slowly took shape in my head as Mr. Blake detailed his stay in solitary confinement and the challenges faced by people in solitary everywhere. Aided by Mr. Blake’s insights, shared with me in over 300 pages of correspondence, and guided by my own research into solitary confinement and other historical events, my imagination created Caged to Kill and its characters.

  I didn’t meet Mr. Blake until nearly two years later, after I had finished the novel. When I first visited him in late January of 2019, I expected to meet someone who would be treated by prison personnel like he was Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. You see, I had read the trial transcript from Mr. Blake’s successful 2005 federal lawsuit against New York State for unconstitutional solitary confinement in the 1980s and 1990s. I was aware that he acted as his own attorney while handcuffed, with his feet shackled, and surrounded by five members of the New York State Correctional Emergency Response Team. Whether he sat, or stood at the podium in the courtroom, or addressed the jury or a witness, he was shadowed on either shoulder by a member of the team wearing a bullet-proof vest as he moved around the courtroom. So when I arrived at Great Meadow Correctional Facility (a maximum security prison) in Comstock, New York, I expected tight security and a highly monitored visit on the same level as what happened in federal court. I expected that the longest-held prisoner in administrative segregation in New York State would be tre
ated like one of the most dangerous men alive. Was I ever wrong.

  I walked into the visitors room unescorted. A corrections officer behind a counter in one corner assigned me a seat about twenty feet away from him and a second corrections officer. These two officers were the only ones in the room and they seemed to be responsible for overseeing the entire visiting area. A third officer may have stopped by to visit here and there. These officers didn’t wear bullet proof vests and, if they were armed, they carried a simple wooden nightstick, maybe a canister of mace or pepper spray.

  In this facility, inmates from solitary and inmates from the general population have visits in the same large room. It could easily seat over one hundred people. There was only one difference in treatment in the visiting room between inmates from solitary and inmates from the general population. It seemed to be that inmates from solitary were assigned seats closer to the counter where the two corrections officers were stationed. At the time of my first visit, there were about a dozen other inmates and visitors in the room.

  When I saw Mr. Blake enter the room from the other end, he was unescorted, free from handcuffs and ankle chains. He walked past prisoners from the general population seated in the room on his way to greet me. Nobody seemed concerned that Mr. Blake would get into an altercation with any other prisoner or visitor in that room.

  I stood up and shook his hand over a thigh-high steel counter no wider than three feet, with nothing but air between us. We sat down and talked non-stop for hours like two old friends sharing a meal at a diner. We talked for hours and feasted on food that I bought from the vending machines: Twix bars, M&M’s, potato chips, chicken nuggets, gas station sandwiches, and soda. It was a real treat for him to eat something other than the usual prison fare slipped to him through his cage’s meal slot. I bought several glass bottles of Snapple Ice Tea for him from the vending machines. No corrections officer was concerned that he might break one of those bottles and use it as a weapon. I wasn’t either.

  Our conversation wasn’t recorded. I sensed the corrections officer assigned our seats to aid a private conversation. Over the din of several ongoing conversations in the room, the two assigned corrections officers couldn’t hear what we said. Nor did they show any particular interest in us.

  Over the past few months, I have visited Mr. Blake three times for a total of over fifteen hours. At all times, the corrections officers on duty have acted with total respect toward Mr. Blake and me. They respected our privacy by leaving us alone. I visited the facility not as an author, former judge, or attorney, but as an average citizen. My visits to the prison were totally unannounced. They didn’t know I was coming until I showed up at the entrance. Like anyone else on their first visit to a maximum security prison, I had problems passing security because I was unaware of some rules.

  Not once during my three visits was I personally treated with anything but professionalism by the staff on duty. I didn’t bear witness to unprofessional treatment of anyone else there, either, inmates or visitors alike.

  I witnessed friendly first-name conversations between Mr. Blake and the corrections officers on duty in the visiting room. On one occasion, Mr. Blake commented that it was hot in the room. A corrections officer said he’d open the window for Mr. Blake because he never caused him problems while he was assigned to oversee prisoners in solitary. On another occasion, a corrections officer went out of his way to enter the visitor’s room to ask Mr. Blake a question. Did he want to give me a calendar addressed to him that was too big for the package office to handle? Another corrections officer came over to our area and politely answered some questions about visitation rules.

  At all times during my visits, Mr. Blake behaved well and the corrections officers treated him well. I sensed no friction between the corrections officers and Mr. Blake. The corrections officers were not concerned for my safety any more than they were concerned for the safety of any other visitor in that room. I never felt in danger.

  And yet Mr. Blake has been housed in solitary for thirty-two years! At age fifty-five, is he truly one of the most dangerous men in New York State and perhaps in the country? Does he really need to be locked up alone for twenty-three hours per day in a six-foot by eight-foot cage? Why is Son of Sam, the notorious serial killer of seven people, circulating within the general population while Mr. Blake can’t seem to get out of solitary? I have to ask myself, how many more prisoners are trapped in solitary confinement in New York State like Mr. Blake?

  Actions always speak louder than words in my experience and the summary I’ve provided about my visits in this preface speaks volumes to me. I think you’ll agree that there is something terribly wrong going on here. The good news is that you can do something about it.

  As I write this preface, there is currently a bill before the New York State Legislature that will give Mr. Blake his first opportunity to live outside of solitary with the general population. I’m asking you to take a few seconds of your time to sign the petition that I’ve started on Change.Org at this link HERE. Please tell your family and friends to sign it too. I know you’re wondering how Mr. Blake got stuck in solitary. You can read much more about Mr. Blake’s story in the petition.

  After you have signed the petition, I invite you to buckle up and plunge into Caged to Kill. When you’re done, I invite you to read the other two standalone books in this series: Saving Babe Ruth and The Killdeer Connection.

  You can drop me a note or sign up for my Reader’s Group through my website at TomSwyers.com at this LINK.

  On behalf of Mr. Blake and myself, I want to thank you for your support.

  Tom Swyers

  Schenectady, NY

  April 2, 2019

  Chapter 1

  Death was about to make a house call.

  Convicted murderer Phillip Dawkins wasn’t in his cell at Kranston Maximum Security Prison that day. He was on the run. Freedom had called his name. Dawkins should have been long dead—should have been executed—for killing a cop back in 1985 when he was nineteen. That’s what the newspapers said. That’s what the district attorney said. That’s what Dawkins’ smirking face on television said.

  After pronouncing the sentence, the judge added that he’d personally drive him down to Sing Sing and pull the switch to watch him fry as Old Sparky’s 615th victim.

  But New York State didn’t have a death penalty back in the ‘80s and still doesn’t today. Instead, Dawkins was sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed by law: life without the possibility of parole.

  An hour south of Kranston, lawyer David Thompson had just sat down facing the TV in his upstate New York home, located in suburban Indigo Valley. The house was empty and quiet, just the way he liked it on the weekends. The front doorbell was disconnected because that’s where all the salespeople, politicians, and other undesirables came to call. Anyone who mattered to David knew to come to the side door. They knew to ring that doorbell because it was wired to work. The people who went to the front door could press the bell until hell froze over for all he cared. He’d find their flyers and brochures days later attached to the door handle and would respectfully recycle them.

  David sat in his living room watching a Yankees preseason show on ESPN. On the day before Easter, it still felt like winter in Indigo Valley. Temperatures in the high thirties with a brisk 20 mph wind brought to mind snow showers, not May flowers. Easter wasn’t a big deal in the Thompson household. Opening day for baseball, on the other hand, was a huge deal. That was Monday and it marked the official first day of spring as far as David was concerned.

  When he first heard a tapping sound, he ignored it. He figured it was the wind whipping the utility wires against the house. But after a couple more rounds of three taps and a pause, he figured it must be something else.

  Stupid woodpeckers.

  He jumped off the couch and looked for inspiration—something to take outside and throw at them. The peckers loved to drill holes in his cedar clapboard siding—not to nest—but just for the hel
l of it. They left a rash of perfectly round holes like someone had shot a high-velocity rifle at the house. It was a yearly event in a decades-old war. But while he debated between throwing either a football or tennis ball at the bird, David saw the family’s two cats, Ritz and Oreo, sitting patiently, wagging their tails, glaring at the front door. From his living room, through one of the front door’s sidelights, he saw the outline of someone standing on the stoop.

  On this Holy Saturday afternoon in 2015, Phillip Dawkins stood on David Thompson’s front steps, tapping on the door with his index finger, the same way he used to tap away the time with his prison-issued pen. For hours on end, he’d tap that ink-filled cocktail straw on his steel bedframe. Like a metronome, mechanically and methodically, he’d mark the passage of his life sentence one tap at a time.

  The dark walnut door of David’s home sounded very different from the prison bedframe. No ding but rather a soft, hollow thud. Phillip Dawkins hadn’t touched wood in thirty years. His life had been all steel and concrete. The sound, touch, and smell of the wood fascinated him and scared the crap out of him at the same time.