Exhibition in Nobel Peace Centre (Oslo, Norway)

"Tell The World About Us" Exhibition in Nobel Peace Centre (Oslo, Norway) about prisoners around the world and on death row in USA. Pictures of Mike Lambrix were included.

                                                             

Through the bars of his solitary confinement cell in a detention centre for political prisoners, a prisoner pushed a piece of paper into the hand of photographer Rune Eraker. There was just one sentence written on it:
                                            "Tell the world about us"
This was in 2001. A decade and a half later, Rune Eraker embarked on a four year project in which he sought out forgotten prisoners and others who had had their freedom snatched away.

This exhibition is about them,
those who are imprisoned, isolated, tortured, steam rollered and sentenced - in the worst cases, to death. Some for what they believe in.Others are victims of unjust laws, prejudice, politics, regimes, violence, religion of the devastation of war.
But the exhibition is also about strength.  About courage, the capacity to suffer and endure.

https://www.save-innocents.com/news/review-of-tell-the-world-about-us-an-insightful-photo-exhibition-about-prisoners-around-the-world-and-on-death-row-in-the-usa#

Death by Default

Written by Mike Monday, 16 February 2009

When I was sentenced to death over 24 years ago, in my ignorance I thought my fate might lie in “Old Sparky,” Florida’s then infamous electric chair. I didn’t realize that the reality is that most of those condemned to dearth are not condemned to die at the hands of the state, but slowly rot away in solitaire confinement until they inevitably die of “natural causes.”

Recently several newspapers have reported that in the past decade more men on death row have died of natural causes than of actual executions. According to these published reports at least 29 men have died on Florida’s death row in recent years while waiting their judicially imposed date with death -- a few more have been stabbed by other prisoners and at least one (Frank Valdes) was beaten to death by prison guards. See, Valdes v. Crosby, 450 F. 3d 1231 (11th Cir. 2006).

The truth is that increasingly those sentenced to death are more likely to slowly die of old age than by execution. Although the state sanctioned serial killers (politicians and judges who exploit the death penalty to advance their own pathetic careers) constantly cry about speeding up executions – most of this is rhetoric – the truth is that they actually only want to speed up executions against those they believe they can actually execute… and many of those presently sentenced to death cannot be executed without controversy that would undermine the credibility of the death penalty itself. See, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.

That’s the dark secret of the death penalty in America – when the judicial system screws up and sentences someone to death who legally should not have been sentenced to death; then what do you do with him? In Florida, and many other states, it’s become death by default -- killing the condemned when they cannot be executed by simply letting them slowly rot away in a solitary cage until they die of old age, or other convenient “natural cause.”

Earlier today on the wing adjacent to the one I am warehoused on the guards were making their routine rounds when they discovered death row inmate Jack Farrell laying dead in his cell. Preliminary examinations indicate that Jack, a longtime diabetic, died of a massive heart attack. Another dead of “natural causes” after many, many years of waiting for his court ordered death sentence.

Down the hall from me just a few cells away a man I’ve known many years is slowly dying of cancer. Henry Garcia has been locked up almost his whole life. Now well over 50, he has almost nobody other than the friends he has in here. That’s the nature of the beast – as the years pass the condemned become increasingly isolated from the free world. Both family and friends drift away and we find ourselves abandoned and forgotten.

When Henry was told that he had cancer they also told him that it was decided by the medical department that it was not “cost effective” to treat him – that the prison would not even attempt to fight the cancer, but would only let him die… death by default. Now Henry must face a slow but inevitable death alone in his solitary cage – and somehow this is supposed to be “humane.”

                                             

Henry died November 2009, read here Mike's essay about Thanksgiving with Henry

Maybe that’s what bothers me the most… we are supposed to be a Christian society, a society that values compassion and humane treatment, and yet we will deliberately turn a blind eye towards the inhumanities that exist in our own backyard.

Maybe if Henry was a mangy stray dog starving on the street then someone might care enough to show him compassion. Am I the only one that’s bothered by the fact that my friend Henry Garcia has now effectively been thrown out alongside the road and left to die while the world races by?

Equally so, what does it say about our system when we allow a man to simply rot away, deliberately deciding that he is not worth saving? How would any one of us feel if we went to our doctor today and were told that we had cancer – but that the doctor decided it was not “cost effective” to treat us and that we have already been given up for dead? How can we call ourselves a humane and civilized society when bureaucrats, who are more concerned with their budget than the patient’s life, decide the value of any person’s life?

If I had access to a telephone, I would personally call the Florida Department of Corrections appointed secretary Jim McDonough and ask him why prison doctors are refusing to treat Henry Garcia – why they have decided to simply let him die. But death row prisoners in Florida are not allowed to use the phone, so I can’t…

You have to excuse my ignorance, but even after spending my entire adult life in a cage in solitary confinement condemned to death for a crime I did not commit, there’s still a part of me that believes that there is good in each of us… that there are still people who are compassionate and do care, even about the welfare of the least of our society. That I’m not the only one who finds it morally offensive that any man should be abandoned and left to die alone. I’ve seen the worst of humanity and lived among the evil incarnate. But I’ve seen men society labeled as monsters show genuine compassion for those they live among while the world outside relentlessly gathers in glorified lynch mobs slobbering at the mouths while screaming for our deaths.

Now I look around me at the world I remain condemned to and I see what society doesn’t want to acknowledge… I see that the malice society has for the lowest of low has reached new heights, as society remains deliberately oblivious to the fact that more and more of those we condemned to death decades ago are rotting away and left to die of “natural causes” when they cannot be killed quick enough by the hands of the State.

And nobody cares. What could be more inhumane than to deliberately confine a man to a cage for decades (many now in excess of 30 years!) and when unable to quickly carry out his execution instead let him slowly rot away until he dies? To be deliberately isolated from the free world, abandoned and forgotten by society and given up for dead as if your life means nothing? Henry Garcia is only one of many others presently condemned to the same fate – death rows across the country have hundreds of condemned men and women perhaps even thousands, who will never actually face execution, but will be left to slowly rot away in their solitary cage until they die. Death by default is America’s new means of carry out the death penalty and this form of execution is administered not in minutes, not in hours, or ever months, or years – but in decades. It is a slow and methodically torturous death that is designed to kill the man’s soul long before the body finally gives up the ghost.

Is this what we, as a self-proclaimed “civilized” society intended? As a matter of moral conscience shouldn’t it bother us that another human being has now been left to die in a such a manner? If these men were dogs, every animal rights group in the country would beat the hates of the prison down to save them – why is it so hard for people to show that same measure of compassion to another human being? As Henry Garcia now slowly dies alone and abandoned by the world beyond, his inevitable death will remain as a commentary on the kind of society we have become – and perhaps that is the greater tragedy.

Michael Lambrix 

                                                

(Mike was executed by the state of Florida on October 5, 2017)

To Live & Die on Death Row

 Written by Mike in January, 2009

There’s a song I recall from many, many moons ago in a life now far, far away ~ the words still haunt me from time to time, and I smile… “Once was the thought inside my head, before I reach 30 I’ll be dead…” At 48 years old now. I’ve spent almost my entire adult life in a solitary cage on Florida’s death row. Doing life on death row isn’t about living at all, but about dying slow, a day at a time. If there’s anything even harder than living alone, it’s got to be dying alone, as I only exist in a very small world where death is the only absolute reality and everything else is just part of that path getting there.

But there’s many kinds of deaths ~ there’s the death of the body and the death of the soul. There’s a point man can reach when even physical death is seen as a blessing, as a means in which to end a nightmare that has no end. I remain alive only because I still have the strength within me to cling desperately to the remnants of hope that pass my way. But perhaps hope is the greatest deception of all ~and the loss of hope the cruelest death. I’ve seen it only too often, men I’ve know for years slowly broken down by the existence in this artificial environment until you can see it in their eyes ~ that dull look that means only one thing… they’ve given up hope and now await the fate of the condemned, a fate that ultimately becomes more of a mercy killing than an execution, as that physical death brings with it the promise of freedom from a fate far worse than death itself.

That’s what doing life on death row really is ~ it’s a fate worse than death. It’s being condemned not merely to death, but the torturous, methodical degradation of one’s humanity in a world designed to first break you down and make you something less than human before they finally strap that broken flesh to a cold chair or gurney and ritualistically terminate your existence. In truth, most of those ultimately executed at the hands of the state have already given up the ghost long before and have embraced death as the end of a long journey through a hell few could begin to imagine.

Hanging On To Hope
Each month all of us receive a slip of paper that advises us of any “gain time” we might have received that previous month. By law, the prison officials are required to do this, as well as provide the prisoners “presumptive release date” recalculated each month to reflect the deduction of any gain time that might have been awarded.

Every prisoner on Florida’s death row has a presumptive release date in the year 9999. That gives me only, 7992 years yet to go before my presently scheduled release and I’m already counting it down one day at a time. I’ve read in the Bible that Methuselah lived to the ripe young age of 969 years and that was thousands of years ago. So, with modern medical breakthroughs extending the average lifespan I figure I’ve got a good shot at it… all I’ve got to do is live to be at least 8,039 years old and then I’ll walk out the front gate a free man.

This is the kind of humorous “hope” that we cling on to. When these slips of paper are passed out each month, inevitably someone on the wing will holler out, “Hallelujah, baby ~ I’m coming home!” or just as often one guy hollering down the row for all to hear, “Pack your sh__, Bubba, they’re throwing you out.” And some laugh.

A lot of us talk about going home and in that stolen moment of fantasy we can see the green, green grass of home. For some, this hopeful fantasy evolves into a form of psychosis and they not only believe they’re soon going home, but know the exact date and when that date approaches they even give away their personal belongings and awake that particular morning and await the guards to escort them to the front gate. Reality is nothing more than what any of us chose to perceive it to be, and in their own little corner of their own little world , that’s their reality and in a way I truly do envy them as I remain trapped in my reality.

Through the years many have gone home, having proven before the courts that they were wrongfully convicted and upon that legal exoneration they won their freedom. There’s been more than I can remember, but knowing that there have been so many is, itself, a form of hope.

About five years ago or better a long time friend of mine, Juan Melendez, known affectionately to us as “Puerto Rican Johnny” was on the floor I was on. Johnny and I had lived in the same area out on the streets and we would often talk about places and even people we both knew. Johnny would show me pictures of the house he grew up in, of his elderly mother, and talk about how when he got out he would return home and take care of his mother.

Just before Christmas back then he got word that the lower state court threw out his convictions, recognizing that the state had illegally withheld exculpatory evidence. Mucho Macho Johnny cried that night and in our own way we all shared a tear with him. In the sixteen years that he lived among us, he became our brother. Then a few weeks after Christmas the warden came up on the floor and told Johnny to get his stuff as they were releasing him that day. Johnny’s cell was down towards the end of the hall and as he passed he spoke to each of us momentarily. As Johnny approached my cell I felt only joy ~ sharing his joy ~ as he told me, “Rum and coke, esso” … remembering our promise to have a drink in the free world . And then he was gone, but a part of each one of us walked out that front gate back into the free world with him.

Hope… yet another four letter word, a mistress that can and gladly will deceive and seduce you with her elusive charms. It’s that whisper of a promise that your time there will come too, that gives a man the strength to keep that hope alive. But when hope fails then that mistress can become the Angel of death as that lost hope becomes nothing more than the desperate last act at the end of the rope. And there are few things more despairing than to watch helplessly as the guards rush into a cell in the middle of the night and can be heard cutting a man down, then moments later passing by your cell with the cold body of someone you knew and lived among for years.

Rotting Away One Day At A TimeWhile hope is a stolen luxury that brings with it a fragile strength, death continues to be a reality that cannot be denied. For too many of us now doing life on death row this condemnation is about slowly growing old and rotting away until death claims us not at the hands of an executioner, but by “natural causes.”

Although I have now been on death row almost a quarter of a century, there are many who have been here much, much longer. After the Supreme Court threw out the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia (1972) Florida was the first state to rush newly written laws into effect to allow the continued use of capital punishment. Although these new laws didn’t pass constitutional challenge until 1976 in Proffit v. Florida, many of the men still on Florida’s death row today have been here since at least 1974.

When I was charged with the capital murder case that brought me here, I was 22 years old. Recently divorced at the time, I had three young children; my youngest barely a year old. 

                                 

            Mike shortly before being incarcerated



I look in my mirror today and it’s hard to see that young man I once was, as the face looking back is that of a grandfather. My full head of hair is long gone and what hasn’t fallen out is turning gray.

                                          

           Mike in 2009

I am not alone. Death by default that’s what it is. Too often when morally corrupt prosecutors know they cannot kill you, they will maliciously drag your case out until you simply die of old age. Under any circumstances living in solitary confinement under the stress of being condemned to death takes its toll upon the physical and mental health of even the strongest men.

Inevitably, we all grow old, and again, death is the only absolute reality. In a way I should consider myself lucky as at least I came to the row while still a young man. There are many more significantly older when they arrived and the years living in a cage were not as easy. For every man executed in the past 30 years, there’s been at least one other slowly rotting away and inevitably dying of old age.

I read recently in the past 10 years alone at least 30 men have died of “natural causes” on Florida’s death row. Some were of old age ~ others of various types of cancer… many I personally knew. With so many here now for well over 25 and even 30 years, death row is growing gray. At the front of each death row floor there is a handicapped cell intended to house the many who are already confined to wheelchairs. More than a few are now over 75 and will almost certainly slowly rot away and die in their cell as even if they lost all their appeals the governor would not sign a death warrant on them as it’s politically incorrect to put an old, physically disabled man to death ~ but it’s perfectly acceptable to, instead, let him rot away until he eventually dies.

In some cases this is actually by intent and purpose. I know at least a few here today who have lost touch with reality and if ever scheduled for execution the courts would be forced to reduce their sentence to life as it’s constitutionally prohibited to execute a person who has become legally insane. It’s also politically unacceptable to recognize their insanity and reduce their sentences to life. So that they can be transferred to a prison psychiatric unit and receive proper care. The solution is to simply ignore them ~ to deliberately let them rot away until they die in that cage. Inevitably they do… they always do.

But nobody cares. When was the last time you saw any newspaper talk about the many on death rows growing old and dying alone? Recently a national debate about the constitutionality of using lethal injection as a means of carrying out executions generated substantial media interest after Angel “Popo” Diaz was allegedly “tortured” to death by a botched execution and witnesses said it took at least 24 minutes to kill him…. 24 minutes.

But what of the many more who are slowly dying in their cells? If prolonging a man’s death for 24 minutes constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, then why can’t it also be argued that allowing a man to slowly rot away in solitary confinement for many decades until he dies is also cruel and unusual? As a presumably civilized society we are ultimately defined by the measure of humanity we show to others and yet nothing personifies that malignant evil within the heart of man than by looking at the inhumanity we so deliberately inflict upon the least of the least ~ and nothing in our contemporary society illustrates this truth better than the deliberate deprivation imposed upon the condemned ~ it’s not enough to want to take our lives, society demands that we must also suffer until we are slowly broken and then ~ for those who are lucky ~ something less than human is put to death.

From Cockroaches and Rodents to Rats and Snakes
When I first came to death row in March of 1984 this was a much different place ~ not only physically, but the mentality was different. At that time Florida’s main death row was at Florida State Prison, long infamous as the end of the line, where prisoners were warehoused when they could not be securely kept elsewhere. Physically, the wings housing death row were comparable to Third World living conditions. In the winter we froze and in the summer we boiled. With “open wings” (the interior of the wings open from the first tier all the way up to the third tier) it was noisy, as a hundred men would be yelling or watching TV or whatever. With no screens on the always broken windows, the wings were quite literally infested with cockroaches, rodents, even snakes, and birds ~ and then there were many wild cats that would come in to feed off the mice and rats.

                                              

But as bad as the physical conditions were it was a better place. In 1992 they built and opened a new building designed exclusively to house death row. Soon after the majority of the over 300 condemned were transferred to this “Northeast Unit” of the Union Correctional Institution. As I write this I can look outside the window on the catwalk and in the distance I can see the Florida State Prison ~ so close, and yet so far away.

At “FSP,” as we call it, there was a unity ~ even a “brotherhood” ~ that tied us all together. We lived in close proximity to each other and looked out for each other. If a guard came down and screwed with one of us without cause, he took on the whole wing. Although there were always a few assholes and idiots on both sides of the bars, most of us looked out for each other. Back then you knew the difference between a convict and an inmate and a correctional officer and a guard ~ and there is a world of difference. A convict is a stand up guy whose word is his bond and he knew enough to mind his own business and keep his mouth shut when he didn’t know something for a fact. An inmate was seen as a prison rat; the lowest form of life; worthy of no respect. An inmate was by nature unworthy of respect, he was the kind of guy who would lie, gossip, and backstab even his own best friend; often for no reason at all. Inmates were rare on death row back then.

Equally so, the difference between a corrections officer (known only as an “officer”) and a guard was like night and day. An officer came in to work his eight hours and go home ~ it’s just a job and he wasn’t going to take it personally. An officer had no personal malice towards the prisoners and didn’t go out of his way to provoke anyone. If he came in to do a cell search (“shakedown”) he did it without maliciously destroying your property and didn’t have to prove his manhood by being a jerk. Although avoided as much as possible, officers were respected ~ guards were not.

A guard was commonly referred to as inbred redneck scum, the kind of guy who got the job because he couldn’t work anywhere else. A guard didn’t just work eight hours ~ he lived the job and it ate him away like a cancer until all that was left was a bitter broken man who went out of his way to make everyone else miserable. He has malice in his heart and was looked upon with nothing less than contempt, not only by prisoners, but the officers who respected their job.

In those early years a man was allowed to do his own time. In the early 80’s we had only just began to see politicians begin to campaign on promises to lock up more people and make sure prisoners did “hard time.” Although physically our environment was deplorable, we would all gladly go beck if we could have all our privileges returned. Back then we had packages sent in from family and friends four times a year with personal clothes, shoes, cosmetics, maybe even a decent watch or ring and a nice radio. We were allowed to receive “hobby craft” packages monthly with materials for painting, crocheting, and all sorts of other stuff. All of that is long gone now ~ nothing comes in from the outside world anymore and anything we might get must be bought from the prison store at significantly marked up prices; the profits used to subsidize our incarceration, as the prison system has become a virtual industry with thousands of companies now dependant upon contracts they receive to provide everything from the food we eat to the toilet paper we wipe our asses with. It’s all about politics now.

Death row has changed, in every conceivable way. No longer is a man able to do his own time and mind his own business. A new generation has taken over and even so many of the old timer “convicts” are now nothing more than inmates themselves. Because of this death row has become hard time as now not only do we live in a much more deliberately segregated building with only 14 men on each closed run, but you learn to keep to yourself as the man you call a friend today will only too quickly backstab you tomorrow. Respect means nothing in this new generation. And it’s become a much lonelier place.

Watching the World Slip AwayI see that outside world only through the very limited media I’m allowed… a small TV, which the powers that be have determines necessary to prevent against insanity ~ if I were to go insane, then they could not kill me. A small “walkman” type battery powered radio, that doesn’t pick up any stations, and a few magazines and newspapers.

In my world there are no computers, no cell phones, and none of the electronic conveniences that most people take for granted. In the past 24 years I have not touched dirt or grass as our small fenced yard is nothing more than a concrete pad between two wings. I sometimes wonder if the moon and stars still exist as I haven’t seen the night sky in so many years it becomes hard to even remember it.

The deprivation of material those material things that most people simply take for granted out there in the real world certainly pale in comparison to those things that really do matter; especially in this world ~ those things that once separated make it seem that we are helplessly watching the world slowly slipping away.

It is the nature of prison to alienate a man from those he loves. For most, with very few exceptions, as the years pass the few family and friends that once stood by slowly drift away and move on with their own lives. Through the years I can count on the fingers of a single hand the number of death row prisoners who have had family consistently stand by them. Friends tend to drift away even quicker.

That’s not to say they deliberately abandon those they love at the time they need them most. I’d like to believe that most of our families and friends never intended to abandon any of us, but simply moved on and we became less and less of their lives. I’m personally blessed with a large family but haven’t had any communication at all with most of them for many, many years. Life out there in the real world doesn’t come to a stop just because we are no longer in it and as time takes its toll the distance becomes greater and before you know it you’re no longer part of their lives. That’s just the reality of doing time. Accepting that reality doesn’t make it any easier and many in here do turn cold and bitter as they’re abandoned by those who mean the most.

Most of us learn early on not to count on anyone other than ourselves. Contrary to a popular myth the prison doesn’t provide all our needs ~ at best, it provides only the absolute minimum and even then does so in such a way that encourages ~ if not coerces ~ each prisoner to actually purchase even the basic necessities from the prison store, as with each purchase the prison makes a substantial profit.

Without a friend or two outside willing to help prisoners ~ especially those on death row ~ can become even worse than what might be imagined. At least in general population most prisoners can work a job and “hustle” for what they need through a long established barter system. Death row prisoners are not allowed to work a job and have no means in which to barter ~ our only means of survival with minimal comfort is through the compassion and generosity of those who care about us.

As family and friends tend to drift away we are forced to try and reach out to new friends and establish new ties with that outside world. But there are many who hold nothing but malice in their hearts towards prisoners ~ especially death row prisoners ~ and have exerted political pressure to pass laws that now prohibit prisoners from placing personal ads that might allow them to meet new friends, perhaps even a girlfriend who might want to visit.

Florida is unique in the country in implementing these draconian rules prohibiting prisoners from attempting to meet new friends and the result can be seen ~ more and more. Those of us who have been here the longest are increasingly isolated from the free world; effectively abandoned and left to die alone. More and more I see strong men break down and give up, unwilling to have to beg their neighbors for a simple cup of coffee or bar of soap and slowly retreating into his own world of self consuming bitterness and anger and a fate far worse than death.

When it comes down to it, that’s what doing life on death row is really all about… it’s not about living, but about dying one slow day at a time. It’s about simply existing in a solitary concrete crypt. Increasingly isolated from all that really matters, of being methodically deprived of the most basic elements that make us human ~ companionship, compassion, and hope, as hope itself is dependent upon a reason to live.

As I am increasingly isolated from all that matters, that hope and will to live continues to erode ~ I’m not doing life on death row … I’m simply waiting to make my death final.

Mike Lambrix

Mike's website: Southern Injustice

Mike's Story

(written by Mike in 2009) reflecting on his life; youth, upbringing and the time before he was sent to death row)

Many moons ago in a life now far, far away I was born at San Francisco General Hospital in California on March 29th, 1960. I was the fourth of seven children brought into the world by my mother; by the time she was only 24. By right and reason I should not have been born as after the first three (my oldest sister Debra and my two older brothers Donald, Jr. and Jeff) my mother contracted polio and was bedridden and not to have any more children.

In those early years my father and grandfather owned a steel fabrication plant in San Rafael and we lived a comfortable middle class life in Marin County. I was too young to remember the first home I lived in, in Mill Valley and as the family grew and evolved we would move often. My first memories were of a house on Oak Spring Drive in San Anselmo and those memories were and still are unpleasant. Although faded and broken by years that have passed at times I can still remember the violent arguments that led to my parents’ divorce. Or rather remember hiding from them.

                                            

Mike and younger siblings

Then mom was gone and I remained alone with the father I feared, especially when he was drunk – and it seemed he was always drunk. About the time I began school I met my stepmother. She barely spoke English and was hired originally as a housekeeper. I was to young to recognize the seemingly sincere Mary Poppins persona she first projected that all too quickly evolved into the incarnation of evil within her that manifested itself immediately after she and my father married. By that time we were living in a large house high on a hill in Woodacre, over looking the Lagunitas Valley below. Not long after they wed we moved to a subdivision in San Rafael, on Court Street close to where the canal opened into San Francisco bay.

Soon the family began to grow even larger as my stepmother Consuelo became pregnant with her first. We moved again to a house outside of Novato but still within walking distance to Olive Elementary School. I met my first best friend there as his family has a small ranch nearby. Over the hill behind us, a short walk away, was the valley George Lucas where parts of “Star Wars” was filmed. There were good times, but there were bad times. My best friend Russell was killed in a freak accident and my oldest sister – often my only protector – ran away. By the time I was ten she was barely a teen but I understand now why she had to leave, why living on the streets off the generosity of so-called “hippies” and hanging with bikers was better than staying at “home.”

With a half brother and two half sisters the family grew to a total of ten children. From outside looking in I suppose we appeared to be an average family – at least it was the only family I knew so I thought it was average. On weekends, especially during the summers we would all pack up and drive out to my uncle’s coastal ranch (“Diamond T”) on nearby Ft Reyes, now part of the Ft. Reyes national Seashore. On long weekends and holidays we would go camping at Clear Lake, or Lake Mendocino and as evening set we’d all gather around a campfire singing songs as dad played the guitar.

But then came the early seventies and the family business was abruptly forced into bankruptcy. We moved from Novato to the sleepy hollow community of San Anselmo. My two older brothers and I joined the Boy Scouts and served as alter boys at the Catholic Church. My oldest sister, then barely 16 was committed to the Napa State Hospital, pregnant with her first child. By the time I began middle school we moved again to a small farm with an old Victorian house outside of Sebastopol in Sonoma County. By then I discovered the means to escape reality first with alcohol, then drugs.

My grandparents suffered a car accident and both died a few weeks later and my dad all but gave up even trying as he found his own escape in heavy drinking. There were no more holidays with the grandparents, outings to the ranch, or camping trips. As my stepmother took control life at “home” went from bad to worse. It wasn’t long before we again moved – this time in a caravan of travel trailers like a band of gypsies. But it was the best time of my life, as for the entire summer of 1974 we camped out at Yosemite National Park. Now barely 14, I couldn’t imagine how it could get any better. Any pretense of parental supervision was now gone and I was free to explore the park all day, every day as if it was my private playground. As a bonus, I quickly discovered a seemingly infinite supply of free beer; as campers upstream would place their beer in the icy Merced River only to be washed downstream by the rushing current… entire six packs were there for the taking and in surprising abundance. What I couldn’t drink was easily sold or traded for pot (marijuana) and the best summer of life became a long party. It was the best of times.As the summer drew to an end we packed the trailers up and began a two week exodus across America, finally reaching Florida.

For several months we lived in the two trailers and a large tent at a campground outside of Tampa. At that time I began going to a local Baptist Church for the very best of reasons – a girl I met in school belonged to the youth group and I really wanted her to belong to me. As I got more involved “Brother Jeff,” the charismatic youth director “saved” my soul and I found a new high in Jesus. After years of attending the Catholic Church this seemed so alive and fulfilling.

A few months later Dad bought a small house in the farming area southwest of Plant City known as Turkey Creek. My stepmother claimed her domain and made it clear that only her children would be allowed to live in the house. But we didn’t complain. My oldest brother Donald, Jr. joined the Army and became “career military” until that career abruptly ended when he was hit with an aerial grenade during the first Gulf War. That left my older brother and I, and arch nemesis Jeff to share the one small travel trailer while my even younger sisters Mary and Janet shared the other.

With the family reduced to living on welfare, we were all forced to skip school and work on local farms or orange groves and the income was used to feed us. If any of us dared to protest, of God forbid not work at all, the physical repercussions were immediate. But once that day’s job was complete, that pretense of parental supervision again quickly disappeared and we did as we pleased.

Not long after moving to Turkey Creek my older brother, Jeff and I and even my younger sister Mary began hanging with a “neighborhood” crowd. We never aspired to be a “gang” and never roamed the area preying upon anyone. Our thing was simply to meet almost nightly in a group, pool our money, and party. Looking back, I now realize that all of us were from similar backgrounds and in our own way became family. On the days I was allowed to go to school I would often join a crowd of others who regularly “skipped” school. On good days we would hang out and party in the woods behind Plant City High School or go swimming at nearby Mudd Lake. On bad days we would walk to the mall in Plant City and hang out. Although caught more than a few times, it didn’t really matter, as I knew nobody at home would care. When the school would impose suspensions it only meant that I didn’t have to pretend to go to school in the first place, which was even better. I never failed a grade. Somehow I attended just enough classes to absorb what was necessary to pass the tests and I made a point of always taking the important tests. Never – not even once – did a single teacher attempt to talk to me about my chronic truancy or anything. I was a lost child and they accepted that.

As the months passed my stepmother demanded more of us and we became, for all practical purposes, virtual slave labor. My protests increased and the physical beatings became more severe. A few months before my 16th birthday the fair came to Plant City for the annual Strawberry Festival and I found a job working at a game concession… and I found a new life.

By my 16th birthday I was out on the road on my own, working carnivals around Chicago. Say what you want about “carnies’” but this band of misfits were family and they made a point of looking out for each other. Most nights I would sleep in the carnival tents and spend my money on food and partying. Although it would seem to have been the last place a teenage kid should be on his own, even though I didn’t appreciate it, those on the lot knew I was a kid and seldom did I go anywhere without a watchful eye keeping me out of trouble. We worked long, hard hours and when the lights on the Midway went off we’d gather in groups – often pooling our money to rent a motel room – and party to excess.

                                         

Mike and friends

In all the years I worked on the road, not even once did I get in any kind of legal trouble. Contrary to popular myth, habitual criminals were not welcome as the show would not tolerate anyone bringing heat down on the show. From early spring into the summer we would work local carnivals in Chicago area, then with summer came the county and state fairs, which meant even longer hours, even days straight during “Midnight Madness.” From Michigan and Illinois State Fairs, we would work our way south through Arkansas and Oklahoma, then into Texas, and across to Louisiana and finally back to Florida for “winter quarters”.

Returning to Florida in late 1977 I met a girl I knew in high school when I briefly joined the high school ROTC program. Almost immediately Kathy Marie and I became inseparable. A few months later when it was time to head back up to Chicago for the new season she tagged along. By late summer she was pregnant and we made plans to return home and settle down. On October 27th, 1978 – both of us barely 18 – we were married at the Polk County Courthouse in Bartow, Florida. The next day I was on a bus and on my way to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma to report for active duty in the Army. Without a high school education and any job skills other than working carnivals, the military meant I had the opportunity to take care of my new family. But what may very well have become a “career” as it was for my brother, abruptly ended with an accident while on duty and a discharge for failure to perform my required duties. After my discharge we lost our health coverage and when our daughter was born in March 1979 at Tampa General Hospital we almost lost her when the doctor failed to do a c-section in time and our little “Niki” (Jennifer Nicole) came to life still in the womb and drowned in her own fluids. For a month she remained in a coma at the neo-natal unit of Tampa General kept alive by respirators, and tubes, and wires, but then she finally came home.

The prolonged deprivation of oxygen and physical trauma of her birth caused permanent brain damage and epilepsy. But she was our little girl and she was home and that’s all that mattered. Both of us still too young and irresponsible to be parents ourselves, and still “partying” beyond excess, bad judgment was a way of life. Within months we returned to the road, living in our car and countless motel rooms. Working carnivals and fairs was he only life we knew. As the season drew to an end Kathy Marie announced she was pregnant again and we made plans to “settle down.”Returning to Florida just after Christmas in early 1980.

I quickly blew the money we had saved to get our own place on a motorcycle – then wrecked it racing another bike on the highway. That was the last straw… Kathy Marie’s family descended upon her, insisting she leave the loser. Her mother gladly hired a divorce lawyer and formal divorce proceedings were initiated; however, before any hearing could be held, we reconciled, rented a mobile home, and I actually got a real job. Accomplishing all that I didn’t see any need to stop partying too. Soon I was supplementing my income by any means necessary as my use of alcohol and drugs substantially increased. No longer surrounded by the protective “family” of carnies, I began hanging out with a more destructive crowd.

In July 1980 our son Daniel Brian was born at Tampa General Hospital. With my irresponsibility reaching new heights, Kathy Marie began paying expenses by forging her mother’s signature on her family’s trust account. On our second anniversary, she was arrested on 24 counts of forgery, and I was arrested on outstanding traffic tickets. Her family took temporary custody of our kids. After a month I was released but she remained in jail until February, three months later. Her family refused to let me have custody until Kathy Marie was out.

Again my “partying” escalated and I began getting into trouble. With nothing to hold me back, I lived in bars and lounges selling drugs and consuming the profits. Having proven my inability to be a mature and responsible husband and father, nobody was surprised when I started cohabitating with another woman. When Kathy Marie was released from jail in February 1981 she quickly renewed the divorce proceedings and by April the divorce was final. Now accompanied by “Kitty” I returned to Chicago to work the new carnival season. Kitty was not a carnie, nor would she ever be. In June we returned to Florida, as she was pregnant. Shortly after we returned I ran across Kathy Marie. With our divorce (which I never challenged) final less than two months, she had already remarried a family friend. But by that night she left Walter – and I left Kitty – and we reconciled.

In August of 1981, while extremely impaired, an argument evolved into an act of inexcusable road rage resulting in an accident when the other vehicle hit a telephone pole. Intoxicated and in possession of illegal drugs I fled the scene only to be arrested a few days later for aggravated battery. For months I remained incarcerated until the charges were finally dropped. During that time Kathy Marie’s probation on her forgery charges was violated and she was ordered into a state “halfway” house in the Ybor City area of Tampa. In late November 1981, Kathy Marie was walking to a nearby store from that halfway house when she was abducted, then taken to a nearby lot where she was raped repeatedly by two men, then beaten and left for dead.

Again this created a wall around her that I could not penetrate. The next month, I left Florida for Utah where I intended to meet my mother for the first time since I was a child. I knew I had to get out of Florida and away from the destructive lifestyle I was living. Once in Salt Lake City I stayed with my mother and found work. But I didn’t escape my need to party and it wasn’t long before I was hanging with a new crowd but doing the same thing.

A few months later came an arrest for drunk driving – even though I wasn’t driving at the time! (It was Utah – everybody knows those Mormons are nuts!). In early March 1982 I received a telephone call from my former girlfriend Kitty telling me our son Cary Michael, Jr. (born prematurely in Michigan in late December) was in the hospital with pneumonia in Plant City, Florida and might not make it. That next day I left Utah driving nonstop to Florida in less than 48 hours. Not long after arriving back in Florida I was arrested in Plant City on an outstanding warrant for violation of probation. After a few months in the Hillsborough County Jail my probation was formally revoked and I was sentenced to state prison for two years on the original felony conviction – a single “bad check” charge, my only prior felony conviction. (It should be noted that when many members of the Congress committed the same crime – deliberately writing a check on their accounts without sufficient funds -- no action was taken against them.)

With almost nine months of time already served in the county jail, that two year prison sentence was actually less than a year. After about six months in state prison I was transferred to a state work release center, where I would work a regular “free-world” job then report back and stay at the work release center.

Once again my drinking got the best of me. Within a few days of arriving at the work release I was caught smoking a joint and “busted.” A disciplinary action was filed and I was placed on administrative probation. A few weeks later I skipped work and went out drinking with my younger brother Chuck – and again got caught. This time it was another disciplinary action and assigned extra duty in the kitchen, and instructed I had to find a new job working days, not nights.

A few days before Christmas 1982 the company I found work with held a Christmas party, which included a smorgasbord of hard liquor. By the time I was due back at the work release center I was wasted. I knew if I went back in would be my third violation and I would be returned to state prison as well as lose all my accrued “gain time” which would mean almost a year in prison. That seemed like a lot and I didn’t want to face it, so I simply did not return, which in Florida is technically considered an “escape” from state prison. A fact I conveniently failed to appreciate when I made my intoxicated decision not to return. That decision led me to relocate to LaBelle, Florida and set the stage for the case that led me to death row. And here I remain.

Michael Lambrix

Latest News from Florida’s Death Row (Sept, 2013)

Allow me to first send a warm hello to those that I am truly blessed to have as friends, who I too often neglect to express my gratitude and appreciation towards but wouldn’t want any of them to think that I take their friendship for granted. As most who read my irrelevant blog already know, things in my life have been especially difficult this summer as the courts denied my appeals and then last month the prison system tried to push through a new rule that if passed, would had effectively silenced me and all other Florida prisoners by prohibiting any and all forms of expression by way of the internet – more on that in just a minute.

It has been a long and hot summer – but what Florida summer isn’t? This time of year I am reminded just how much it means not only to me, but to all of us here on Florida’s death row to have these small electric fans. Most of you already know how unbearable a Florida summer can be – especially when you’re kept in a six foot concrete cage indefinitely, which becomes an oven during the long days of relentless summer heat and humidity.

But what some of you may not know is that for many years any form of fan was prohibited under the pretense of “security”, even a simple piece of cardboard used as a handheld fan could get you thrown into the hole. It really has nothing to do with any legitimate security concerns – it was simply yet another manifestation of the extreme malice prison officials held towards death row and their intent to have us suffer as much as they could.

From 1984 to 2006 I never had any form of fan and the only reprieve from the oppressive heat would be to sit naked on my toilet and pour water over my body to momentarily cool off. Then Randall Berg of the Florida Legal Institute agreed to represent the death row population in the Federal lawsuit arguing that the refusal to allow even so much as a small fan was “cruel and unusual”.

Only when under threat of legal action did the prison officials finally agree to allow a small electric fan, but that window of opportunity would be only open for a limited time, and at that moment of greatest urgency the completely volunteer group FDRAG (Florida Death Row Advocacy Group http://fdrag.kk5.org/#) quickly raised enough money to donate a small fan to each Florida death row prisoner, and so in 2005 Florida death row prisoners finally were allowed an electric fan. 

But donating fans to death row is only a small part of what FDRAG has so generously done to advocate humane conditions on Florida’s death row. Years ago when prison officials proposed to eliminate “contact” visits for Florida’s death row prisoners, FDRAG organized protests and the FDOC backed off, allowing us to keep our visits.

Recently, the few people who work to keep FDRAG going have struggled as support for the group has declined. So I wanted to take this moment to say how much it means to all of us here on death row to have FDRAG around, and for those of you who are not yet aware of the difference FDRAG on the quality of life for all of us here, I would ask that you check out FDRAG’s website  http://fdrag.kk5.org/# and consider to offer your support in any way you can or become a member as there is really strength in numbers and if only the membership in FDRAG would increase collectively we can all make a real difference.

Moving on, as I previously wrote in a blog in July, the pro-death penalty republican conservatives that control the Florida legislative pushed through new laws entitled The Timely Justice Act designed to significantly expedite more executions by now statutorily mandating that the Florida governor sign “death warrants” on every death sentenced prisoner who has completed his/her first round of state and federal appeals within 30 days. Under this new law at least 125 Florida death row prisoners (including myself) become immediately “death warrant eligible” as of July 1, 2013, with all 125+ executions to be scheduled within 6 months.

Numerous lawyers quickly filed a comprehensive legal challenge to this “Timely Justice Act” in the Florida Supreme court focusing primarily on the argument that the state legislature is constitutionally prohibited from passing laws mandating that another branch of government (i.e., the Governor) perform their duties in a certain manner. This legal challenge remains pending at this time with no action taken as the Florida Supreme Court has been out on their summer vacation until the last week of August.

Now that the Florida Supreme Court is back in session, we expect that the court will soon address this legal challenge. The state has responded to this challenge by claiming that the Florida Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to entertain review of this challenge. This novel argument was specifically encouraged by Florida Supreme Court (current) chief Justice Rick Polston and Justice Charles Canady as an obvious attempt to circumvent review. Both chief Justice Polston and Justice Canady were politically appointed to the Florida Supreme Court after previously working with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush when he tried to push through the “Death Penalty Reform Act of 2000” , which attempted to adopt the Texas appeal system to Florida, but was declared unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court in 2000.

Now the pro-death penalty politicians have politically appointed their hand-picked death merchants to the Florida Supreme Court and chief Justice Polston and Justice Canady will use their power to push to have this new law upheld. But it will take 4 of the 7 Florida Supreme Court justices to reach any legal binding decision. There’s reason to believe that at least 4 of the current FSC justices will find that this newly passed Timely Justice Act does violate Florida’s “definition of power” laws and strike it down as unconstitutional. All we can do is wait and see..

In other news, the Florida Department of Corrections recently lost a significant federal lawsuit that had argued that the Florida DOC was violating prisoner’s constitutional right by refusing to provide an adequate “religious” diet for Jewish and Muslim prisoners who are prohibited from consuming “unclean” foods. As a result, the Florida DOC has been forced to immediately provide a “religious” diet to any Florida prisoner who declares that due to religious beliefs they cannot consume unclean foods. Not surprisingly, already many Florida prisoners (including those on death row) suddenly found “religion” and have signed up for this new “religious” diet.

To understand why such a substantial number have jumped on board, you must first understand that for many years now the Florida prison system has systematically “modified” our regular diet with the goal of cutting costs by almost completely eliminating any form of real meat, fruit or milk products. Most meats have become some form of soy protein based “meat substitute” that is virtually tasteless, and the quality of the food has become progressively worse and is generally considered to be inedible by most prisoners.

So, while the rest of us continue being fed food that not even a desperate dog would eat, those on this diet are now getting real food, prepared by an outside food vendor that is restaurant quality and includes real eggs and fruit at each breakfast and real meat (turkey cutlet, fish, chicken filets, Salisbury steak etc ) at all meals.

Although I’m tempted to get on this new diet myself, I would have to first declare myself either Muslim or Jewish, and as a matter of personal choice of religious affiliation, I cannot do that. So, I’m stuck with the garbage they feed us on the regular diet.

Last, for those of you who are not aware yet, the Florida DOC recently contracted all money deposits services to the private company JPay, so money orders cannot be sent to FDOC Tallahassee Inmate Bank anymore, but now must be sent to the Jpay address in Miami. You can find all the information you need at jpay.com, and this service also allows the convenience of electronic money deposits.  

That concludes this update on news affecting Florida death row. Again I thank all of you for your interest and continued support!

Michael Lambrix 

Florida Death Row

Please check out my site
www.southerninjustice.net

FLORIDA SUPREME COURT RULES ON APPEAL

As some of you who regularly follow my blog already know, on Thursday June 27, 2013 the Florida Supreme Court finally ruled on my long pending new evidence/innocence appeal, and unanimously denied the appeal in a “per curium” opinion. Considering it took the court almost 3 years to finally decide this case, the denial was a surprise – but even more surprising was the hostility reflected in the ruling. Instead of giving adequate review of the state’s own deliberate prosecutorial misconduct, as even the state conceded that the prosecutor had intentionally concealed numerous state crime lab files containing crucial evidence that would have undoubtedly undermined the credibility of the state’s key witness, the Florida Supreme Court instead chose to vent their unjustified hostility towards any “secondary” post conviction appeals.

Perhaps in a better world we would like to think that those appointed to our highest courts would have the moral character and professional integrity to rise above their own obvious prejudices and rule according to the law. But as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, paraphrasing, those who spend their whole lives fighting monsters should not so much fear the monster, but instead fear becoming the monster. I truly doubt those on the Florida Supreme Court can even see the evil boiling within them, and blinded by their own distorted sense of “moral justification” they probably even think they are doing the right thing when they respond with such hostility towards legitimate claims of innocence and knowingly send innocent men and women to their death under the pretense of administering justice.

But the irony of their actions is that this decision strays so far and contrary to well established law that it could be argued that by ruling as they did, the Florida Supreme Court actually may have done me a favor.

Here’s what is at issue. The main claim in this appeal was that the prosecutor who originally tried this case deliberately concealed numerous state crime lab records back in 1983 that contained irrefutable evidence that the state crime lab found numerous hairs on the alleged “murder weapon” that did not match either the victim, or me, but were consistent with those of the state’s key witness, Frances Smith.

In 2009 an independent researcher found these state crime lab files concealed at a state records repository in boxes from the State Attorney’s office. This researcher then turned these file folders over to my lawyers, who immediately recognized that this was a major violation of long established Federal constitutional law.

In a nutshell, it has long been established that prosecutors are constitutionally required to disclose all favorable evidence to the defendant. Yet consistently we see that prosecutors deliberately violate this law and hide favorable evidence, hoping it will never be discovered – and only god knows how much is not discovered! This type of deliberate prosecutor misconduct is responsible for a greater percentage of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases than any other cause – and Florida by far leads the country in the number of such wrongful convictions in capital cases!

Apparently embarrassed by their record number of wrongful convictions, the Florida courts have now decided they will just ignore such deliberate prosecutorial misconduct – even if it means sending an innocent man to his death. For example, in James Guzman v. State of Florida, 721 So. 2d. 1155 (Fla. 1998) the Florida Supreme Court addressed a similar case in which irrefutable evidence showed the prosecutor deliberately concealed evidence that would have impeached the credibility of the state’s key witness – if the Florida Supreme Court had it their way, Guzman would have been put to death. But the Florida court’s denial was so contrary to applicable Federal law that the Federal courts subsequently intervened, specifically finding the Florida Supreme Court’s denial of a new trial “unreasonable” and “clearly contrary to established Federal law,” and on October 27, 2011 the Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, vacated Guzman’s capital convictions and ordered a new trial.


Similarly, on January 20, 2012, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Juan Smith v. Burl Cain, U.S. Sct Case No. 10-8145. Like in Guzman, the death sentenced petitioner (Juan Smith) was denied relief by the state courts on a claim that the prosecutor had deliberately concealed evidence that could have been used to undermine the credibility of the state’s key witness. In a cursory opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, which even conservative pro death penalty justices Scalia and Alito joined, the Supreme Court found that the state courts denial of this claim was unreasonable and contrary to clearly established federal law, and threw out all five capital convictions and sentences of death imposed on Juan Smith…only Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed.

For that reason, being familiar with applicable law, when I learned of how the Florida Supreme Court had denied my appeal in an extremely hostile opinion focused more on unethically attacking me and my legal counsel than on the substantial issue presented, instead of being upset, I smiled, as I knew immediately that they actually did me a favor – and their denial of relief actually will now significantly improve the likelihood that either the U.S. Supreme Court or Federal Court will now throw out my convictions in their entirety – and set the stage for my release, although it will now take longer.

Here’s how the case will now proceed…once the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling is “final” (after rehearing is denied), my lawyers will now take the case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, and argue that as in Smith v. Cain (2012), the state court’s cursory denial of this substantial Federal claim must be summarily thrown out in their entirety. And in light of Smith v. Cain, there’s a very good chance that the U.S. Supreme Court will now do just that.

But assuming for the moment that the Supreme Court declines review, thanks to the Florida court’s refusal to allow a full evidentiary hearing on this issue, I will now be entitled to a full new Federal appeal, which will also now allow me to specifically argue “fundamental miscarriage of justice/actual innocence” – meaning that this will now open the door to allowing me to present all the evidence supporting my consistently pled claim of actual innocence.

Although it sucks that the Florida Supreme Court has once again shown that they lack the moral character and integrity to follow long established constitutional law – which obviously contributes to why Florida leads the country in wrongful convictions in capital cases – the truth is that upon realizing just how extremely outside applicable law this ruling was, I almost felt compelled to give the Florida Supreme Court justices a big hug and heartfelt thanks. And I can’t help but wonder if the Florida Supreme Court justices actually knew what they were doing as they obviously are aware of the decisions in Smith v. Cain and Guzman v. Sect., FDOC, and either just didn’t care what the Federal Courts think – or this is their way of saying that although they don’t have the courage or integrity to do the right thing by ruling as they did, they knowingly set the state for what they know will almost certainly now result in Federal Courts throwing out my convictions and result in my own exoneration and release.

I realize that many who do care about me and have followed my case are probably upset about this seemingly awful ruling – but I write this to tell you that although the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling was unreasonably hostile and reflects just how completely corrupted the Florida Supreme Court has become by the “politics of death” – and why there can be no doubt that they are only too willing to put innocent people to death – this really was not that bad of a ruling as they all but guaranteed that I will now receive full Federal review and almost certainly will now have my convictions vacated by the Federal Courts.

Michael Lambrix # 482053
Union Correctional Institution
7819 NW 228th street
Raiford, Florida 32026

That Ever-Elusive Glimmer of Hope

Nelson Mandela, when he was imprisoned on Robben Island, was undoubtedly subjected to substantial hostility from the guards working around him, seeing him as a threat to their way of life. However, even in the worst of times, Mandela saw that glimmer of humanity that sustained his hope and gave him the strength to endure and he often spoke about that. But few would be able to truly appreciate just what he meant by his words, as very few will ever find themselves cast down into the bowels of a maximum-security prison that is intended to methodically break not only your body, but also your spirit, until you abandon all hope and submit to the masters of your fate.

I dare say that, although the circumstances may be different, I can find that common ground with Nelson Mandela. I can relate to his words as I too have spent not merely a few years but a few decades in solitary confinement under what is intended to be not merely physically, but psychologically oppressive conditions that take their inevitable toll in ways one cannot always see.

In all the years that I have spent ion Florida’s death row I have never seen the level of malice directed towards us by our captors as I do now. It’s a tangible presence that now hangs over us like an evil entity out to torment our very souls. I can not say how it took hold or why it has become what it is, but I can not deny this presence where once there was a level of mutual civility between the guards and convicts, now the guards almost always harbor a level of malice and even hate towards us that manifests itself in every way. Any guards who do dare show basic civility to death row prisoners are quickly transferred to another part of the prison. There’s no doubt that this level of malice comes from the very top.

As a result the environment we must live in has evolved into what could be described as a “cold war” zone. A few weeks ago I saw a sergeant who I’ve known for years and once respected because he treated us fairly. As he walked by my cell, I smiled and said “How you have been doing?” I only wanted to be civil. But his response spontaneously came back at me as if I had been physically assaulted “None of you f-----g business, inmate”! That was all he had to say, but more then I cared to hear. In that instant a man I once held in respect immediately lost all respect and in my eyes became the lowest form of scum that ever walked the earth. I quickly learned that this attitude was only too common among the guards working this unit now. What they simply cannot see is that by treating us with such malice, they only reduce themselves to something lower in the subhuman species. And I’m afraid that when one guard after other exhibits this same attitude for no apparent reason, then it doesn’t take long before the lines are clearly drawn and we come to see all the guards as the enemy.

But then in the most unexpected way my own attitude is put in check. A few weeks ago my elderly parents came up for their monthly visit. It was an extremely hot Florida summer day and as mom helped my father out of the car and into his wheelchair, she accidentally closed the car door, locking the car keys and their identification inside. They had no way to open the car door. Now standing there in the prison parking lot, it wouldn’t take long before the Florida sun took its inevitable toll. Both my parents are now quite elderly and not at all in their best health. It was at least 7 miles back to Starke, where the closest mechanic was who could be called to open the car door.

But then a sergeant saw them stranded there in the parking lot and went over to offer his assistance. He had to know they were visiting a prisoner as that would be the only reason for civilians to be at a prison parking lot on a Saturday morning. Despite the relentless heat bearing down upon him, that sergeant became as equally determined to help my parents and struggled for the better part of an hour to get their car door open. Another guard came over and offered my parents some water. Finally they succeeded in manipulating the door lock open and my parents retrieved their identification and were able to come in to visit me, and told me the story.

I was surprised and grateful to the unknown sergeant and officers who kindly helped my parents. But it also caused me to think about what Nelson Mandela said after his many years of imprisonment. In our world it is only too easy to allow ourselves to become filled with malice towards those on the other side of those steel bars, especially when the interaction between us and them is almost always an unpleasant experience. Like a dog in a cage, once you’ve been kicked so often by every guard that walks by, it’s only too easy to come to expect that from all of them.

But then there’s that one brief moment in time, when by a simple act at genuine humanity you are reminded that every person is an individual, and even if 100 guards show nothing but malice towards me for no apparent reason there are still that one or two that have found the strength to rise above this wall that exists between us. A simple act of kindness has restored that glimmer of hope in humanity, as at the end of the day it is our humanity and how that is manifested towards others that defines us as species and as along as there is still a few among us willing to follow that golden rule of doing onto others as we would want them to do onto us, then there is hope for all of us.

Michael Lambrix

Florida death row

Please check out my website

http://www.southerninjustice.net

It’s been a while since I last posted but I’m not dead – yet. Then again, Maybe I am at as I can’t imagine hell being any worse then where I’ve been entombed (here on death row) the past 27 years. No matter as here I am throwing a few more words out into that great beyond you all call the real world. Like one of my favorite songs (“Dust in the wind”, by Kansas) says, that’s what my words are, just dust in the wind.

I’ve been silent for many months. Sometimes things just become so overwhelming that crawling up inside my shell is the only way to survive when the whole world around you is coming down. I don’t think anyone could fault me for needing to step back away from all that’s going on and at least for a while retreat within that sanctuary of ‘self’.

Besides, it’s not like a lot has been going on in my world. I’m still in this cage and the uncertainty of whether I might live or die remains like a wet blanket trying to suffocate what little hope might still exist. But I’m not interested in the whole “woe is me” self pity party as when it comes down to it, I’m certainly not the only person in the world who’s life pretty much sucks. There’s a lot of people suffering out there and no matter and no matter how hard it might get here in my cage, at the end of the day I still get three meals a day and a roof over my head. Many out there don’t even have that.

As I write this, last night the state of Georgia murdered Troy Davis despite worldwide protests calling for clemency. Once again a legitimate claim of innocence has been silenced by killing the victim of incomprehensible injustice. But you know what the real tragedy is? Of the millions of people around the world who signed petitions and were willing to lend their voice in the futile attempt to stop the execution of Troy Davis, the vast majority will now only too quickly move on with their lives and forget about it.

But what if instead of fading back into their lives, even a fraction of those people who stood up for Troy Davis would now be motivated to keep fighting the fight? What if each one of those people now felt motivated by the cause of this incomprehensible injustice and each of them talked to one other person, and got them to see the light, and then that other people talks to and motivates yet another, then another and then that fading voice grows stronger and stronger. Imagine instead of a million people around the world motivated by the single injustice inflicted upon Troy Davis, there were millions willing to commit to a continuous campaign protesting against the injustice that continues to be perpetuated against so many more. As each of these singular voices grow stronger with support of more and more, can they so easily be ignored?

Troy Davis is dead, the victim of a corrupt legal system that is only too willing to murder innocent people under the malicious pretense of administering “justice”. But his death does not have to be in vain and the true injustice would be to forget about him and what his execution meant. His death should be the rally cry for all of us to now stand together and force the world to recognize that Troy
Davis was only one of the too many innocent victims of a corrupt legal system.

If his death is to mean anything, it should be that we now know that the death penalty itself is what makes it possible to put innocent people to death. We all know that there are many who will argue that troy Davis was not innocent – as far as they care, nobody is ever innocent as our legal system is perfect. But no legal system is that perfect and innocent people will continue to be put to death. The only way to truly stop this madness is to stop the death penalty itself.
But we know that won’t happen. The vast majority of those stood up to support Troy Davis have already faded back into the shadows and moved on with their lives. The voice will become silent again, until perhaps another innocent person is facing execution. But riving up at that last moment won’t stop the machinery of death from methodically stalking its next innocent victim. If there’s any chance of winning the fight, we all must be willing to stand our ground and fight the fight. Troy Davis will quickly be forgotten if we all don’t stand our ground and let out voices be heard today, tomorrow and everyday until this intolerable injustice has been defeated.

I hope that some will be motivated to keep the fight going. Otherwise, many more innocent people will continue to be put to death. If the Troy Davis case proved anything, is that it’s not enough to rise up at the last moment and sign a petition as petitions are worthless. We must fight the fight.

Before I go, I also wanted to share a few recent articles written about the death penalty here in Florida. The first one was written by one of Florida’s most respected pro-death penalty judges, Judge O.H. Eaton, Jr (of Orange County Circuit Court, Orlando, Florida). Judge Eaton has sentenced numerous people to death since taking the bench – but is now calling out for the end of the death penalty in his article “Capital Punishment – A Failed Experiment”. What he says makes sense – but will anyone listen?

The next article was recently published in a Florida newspaper as an editorial addressing the indisputable disparity between who faces death and who does not. Again, in this article (Orlando Sentinel, September 7, 2011 by Mike Thomas) it points out why the death penalty is fundamentally unfair and calls for an end to Florida’s death penalty. Mike Thomas - When will state stop arbitrary death-penalty decisions?


For those who may have read this, I thank you for your time. Keep the faith,

Mike Lambrix