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But tonight’s death, sleep that is, was slow in coming. I tossed and turned, fighting to find comfort not so much for my body but for my mind. I have unfortunately, been adequately socialized to the routine at Solano County. Since I could not sleep no longer, I lay awake in the darkness listening to

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And so more than 200 pages of reading – and napping – and 8 hours later, Officer Thompson arrived for the second shift. In his usual loud manner of announcing his arrival at “his kingdom,” he began over the intercom by offering, “You guys are really going to have a boring day with no unlock

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I could tell there was a tremendous problem brewing from the look on his face. The sad “whipped dog” expression was unmistakeable. As a defense I positioned myself and remained on the opposite side of the day room. I wanted to be as far away from Danny V as I could get. I could feel

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In this instance, he was impatient, and he was desperately trying to get the phones turned on at “unlock”. The rule is simple: the phones do not come on until all doors are shut, period. (Now, clearly there is no intellectual or safety reason for it, it’s just procedure.) Of course his cell door was

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Solano County Jail is a “maximum security facility” but it, like all other man-made structures, breaks down occasionally. On Monday, the 7th of September 2009, the tower guard announced that it was just “brought to his attention” that the water would be shut off for about an hour between 10:00 and 11:00 am. In his

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I desperately wanted to know more about him. In our first encounter, Gene had shared with me exactly what had gone on: Gene worked as an auto mechanic, and Henry the shooter was a guy who “hung around the shop.” Gene didn’t really know him well but had seen him from time to time over

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It was impossible to sleep that night. I had a project and it was all I could think of.  Purpose is everything. My intention was not to free Gene; on the contrary, there was something foul about the whole deal – beginning with the death of an innocent man. What I wanted was what I

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I wanted to ask him how that made him feel, but I resisted. The object here was still to find out his story, not psychoanalyze him, at least not yet. “I didn’t hear you mention anything about sports or hobbies in Y.A. What do you like to do?” “Echo Glen was great. It was beautiful.

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Those were the first group of questions racing through my head. They were the questions that I wanted answered immediately, but more importantly, they were the questions, at least the type of questions, that never get answered about the accused. No murderer is just a murderer. Nothing happens in a vacuum. The interesting part for

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I do not know why, maybe it was the boredom, there was no revelation or epiphany, I simply decided to ask him his side of the story, and tell it. Being no “virgin” to the attention of the press, I knew they were getting the story wrong – they always do. I also knew any