“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for
ill, it teaches the whole people, by its example. Crime is contagious.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law:
it invites every man to become a law unto himself.”Olmstead v. U.
S., 277 U. S. 439, 485 (1927)
In April 2007, Richard Rowlette became the new Assistant Warden at Red
Onion State Prison (ROSP). Rowlette had previously worked at ROSP in the
position of Security Chief from the time that the prison opened in 1998
until December 1999. During that time he was a principal administrative
player and ringleader in the racist abuses that won ROSP its reputation
for prisoner mistreatment. He was instrumental in helping ROSP gain
national notoriety as one of the country’s most abusive prisons.
Since his promotion to Assistant Warden, I have filed an official
complaint with Rowlette concerning ROSP officials refusing me telephone
contact with two attorneys who had offered me their professional
assistance. I presented a request to Rowlette to allow me to call these
two lawyers.
Months before, both of these lawyers had verified their credentials and
their intent and efforts to advise and assist me in litigation against
various ROSP staff, including my assigned counselor John Sykes and the
chief warden Tracy Ray. One of these lawyers is Mr. Malik Shabazz. Upon
being informed of my ongoing experiences of abuse at ROSP (abuse which
is a response to my political activism and continuing exposure of abuses
at the prison), Mr. Shabazz decided to support me. Mr. Shabazz happens
to be the Chairman of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), an
organization with which I have no affiliation.
Rowlette’s response was that if he had anything to do with it I’d never
talk to a lawyer. When I pointed out that this was a basic
constitutional right, he responded, “Your people have no rights.” I am
New Afrikan (Black) so his meaning was obvious. I filed a complaint. I
also filed a complaint about being denied contact with my lawyers for
months, despite their repeated attempts to arrange legal calls with me.
Rowlette responded to my complaint with a memo stating that my request
to have confidential legal calls to these lawyers was “DENIED.” In this
memo he rationalizes denying me legal calls by claiming that no
attorney-client relationship exists between me and these lawyers.
The memo states that unless I prove that they are actively representing
me in litigation pending in a court of record in Virginia, I will be
denied legal calls. It specifically states that a letter from a lawyer
stating the she is representing me “will not suffice.” The memo also
states, “Your request is further DENIED in regards to Mr. Malik Shabazz
due to his involvement with the New Black Panther Party. To allow
unrecorded phone calls between you and the President/Founder of the New
Black Panther Party would present an unacceptable risk to the Security
of this Facility.”
For the benefit of any doubters, I’ve attached a copy of Rowlette’s
initialed memo.
Rowlette’s memo breaks a barrel full of criminal laws. In Virginia it is
a crime for any person to interfere with the relationship of confidence
and trust that must exist between a lawyer and her/his client. It is
also a crime for any one not licensed to practice law to present himself
as qualified to give legal opinions. Both of these acts constitute the
crime of “unauthorized practice of law.”’
Rowlette has no legal training or authority to define the
attorney-client relationship. He certainly cannot use any such
unauthorized definition to block confidential communications between a
lawyer and client. Indeed, the Virginia Supreme Court itself has defined
what constitutes an attorney/client relationship. The court’s definition
is quite different from Rowlette’s. In the U.S., it is the function of
the courts to define and interpret the laws and the functions of
executives (including prison officials), to enforce and apply those
laws.
In its definitive document “Practice of Law in the commonwealth of
Virginia” (PLCV), the Virginia Supreme Court defines the attorney-client
relationship as follows:
“Generally, the relation of attorney and client exists and one is deemed
to be practicing law whenever he furnishes to another advice or services
under circumstances which imply his possession and use of legal
knowledge or skill.
“Specifically, the relation of attorney and client exists, and one is
deemed to be practicing law whenever (I.) One undertakes… to advise
another… in any matter involving the application of legal principles to
facts or purposes or desires. (2) One … undertakes, with or without
compensation, to prepare for another legal
instruments of any
character…(3) One undertakes, with or without compensation, to represent
the interest of another before any tribunal judicial, administrative,
or
executive…”
Rowlette’s memo presumes to overrule the high court’s definition of the
attorney-client relationship. Using his unlawful definition, he has
barred me from confidential contact with these lawyers. The bigger
absurdity is the obvious Catch-22 in Rowlette’s position. A lawyer must
be able to consult with a client in order to gather the information
necessary to file a lawsuit for him/her. If I am blocked from
confidential communications with lawyers, then they will never be able
to bring litigation on my behalf. This is the real intent behind
Rowlette’s game.
As for Mr. Shabazz’s NBPP membership, Rowlette presents no evidence that
this affiliation threatens prison security. As a federal lawyer,
Mr. Shabazz is foremost an officer of the courts. If his private
organizational affiliations conflicted with his professional status,
Mr. Shabazz would not be permitted to maintain his legal license.
Furthermore Rowlette has directed ROSP mailroom clerks to intercept,
open, read, and refuse to send out mail that is clearly identified as
“legal mail” intended for lawyers. These mailroom officials, based upon
Rowlettes’ position, refuse to treat or process mail to and from lawyers
as confidential legal mail in blatant violation of VDOC mail policy.
This is a federal crime, obstructing U.S. mails,2 and
violates my constitutional rights to free speech and to privacy in my
legal mail.
History of Abuse at Red Onion State Prison
When ROSP first began operating in 1998, it developed almost instantly a
nationwide reputation for racism and abuses of its predominantly
nonwhite prisoner population by its near exclusively white staff.
In response to receiving a flood of letters from ROSP prisoners
complaining of unjustified transfers to ROSP and of frequent and
widespread racism, brutality and general abuse, Human Rights Watch (HRW)
attorney Jamie Fellner conducted an independent investigation into
conditions at the remote Virginia prison. Virginia Department of
Corrections (VDOC) officials refused to cooperate with the
investigation.
Ms. Fellner’s findings were set out in an April 1999 HRW report entitled
Red Onion State Prison:Super-Maximum Security Confinement in
Virginia.3
This report touched on the various abusive conditions and treatments
suffered by ROSP prisoners and found that many of those assigned to the
prison did not meet the criteria for “supermax” confinement. Actually
almost none did. Seven pages of the report focused on incidents and
practices in the “Use of Force” at the prison. One incident described in
that section stands out and is particularly relevant here:
“One inmate told HRW that immediately upon arrival at Red Onion in
September 1998, he and other inmates were told to strip and permit a
visual body search, including by spreading their buttocks. Female staff
were present—indeed one was taking a video of the proceedings—and the
inmate was reluctant to do as ordered in front of them. A captain shot
him with the taser in the presence of the warden, associate warden and a
major. After the inmate had been tasered, the major screamed in his ear,
“Boy, you’re at Red Onion now” and then told the other officers to “get
that nigger out of here.” The inmate filed a grievance because he
felt—correctly—that he should not have had to submit to a visual body
search strip in front of female staff.
“The inmate’s grievance was denied. The warden acknowledged that a taser
had been used because the inmate hesitated to strip and thus ‘was
failing to obey instructions.’ The denial was upheld by the regional
director without comment ‘based on the information provided.’ There was
no effort to suggest that application of physical force was warranted by
any possibility of danger or that nonphysical effort to persuade the
inmate had been attempted and failed. The use of the taser appears more
likely to have been a deliberate and malicious excessive use of force
calculated to intimidate new arrivals to the facility.
“In denying the inmate’s grievance, Warden George Deeds stated that post
orders at Red Onion permit females to work at any post in this case,
assignment to the video camera. It is widely recognized, however that
cross-gender strip searches violate inmates’ ‘Individual dignity and
right to privacy’. The warden’s policy at Red Onion ignores basic
correctional principles and international standards prohibiting
cross-gender strip searches unless in an emergency.” (pp. 21-22)
The prisoner who was the victim of this abusive strip search and
unwarranted attack was XXXX XXXX. Indeed, most every prisoner assigned
to ROSP during that time, including myself, were subjected to this
cross-gender strip search process, during which it was often demanded
that we repeatedly manipulate our genitals and spread our buttocks.
These searches were conducted under threat of being immediately tasered.
A taser was trained on us throughout the strip search process. We were
bodily subdued and searched by force by a mob of guards who were always
present and dressed out in full riot armor. We were then escorted to our
new cell assignment. Most were literally dragged stark naked through the
prison while being observed nude by multitudes of guards, both male and
female, as well as by other prisoners.
The entire process was calculated to humiliate and terrorize new
arrivals and convey the message that at ROSP we would comply without
hesitation with any staff demands, no matter how abusive or arbitrary.
If we failed to promptly comply or questioned the demands, we would be
met with immediate overwhelming force and further humiliation.
To convey this message these officials deliberately created a situation
(for example the cross gender strip searches) calculated to provoke our
resistance or hesitation and thereby justify the
premeditated intent
to use overwhelming force.4
Before Abu Ghraib there was Red Onion.5
Richard Rowlette: Crime Time at ROSP
The Major who was personally present and supervised most of these intake
strip searches, the very same major that screamed in XXXX’s ear and told
guards to “’get that nigger out of here,” was Richard Rowlette.
XXXX subsequently filed and won a lawsuit concerning the incident. The
court found that the officials had violated his constitutional rights,
which is a federal crime.6 XXXX was then transferred away
from ROSP and hasn’t since returned. However, the multitudes of other
prisoners who were subjected to the same treatments and worse, including
myself, were granted no relief
In the wake of extensive bad media, the HRW report, and a U. S.
Department of Justice investigation, Rowlette was assigned to another
VDOC prison in Powhatan County, but not before he acted to settle a long
standing vendetta he had against me.
On December 6, 1999, the day before he left ROSP, and in a departing
last show of power, Rowlette attempted to force me to talk to him at my
cell door. I ignored him. I generally refuse to engage him in
conversation. This enrages him, as he believes he can intimidate
prisoners to do whatever he demands under threat of having them attacked
by guards.
Because I wouldn’t talk to him, Rowlette had two extraction teams of
some 10 guards assembled at my cell in full riot armor, with two 50,000
volt electric shields and a 36 ounce canister of gas. Under his direct
supervision and direction I was gassed for an entire hour while the
entire canister was emptied into the cell. This level of gas was far in
excess of the 6 grams that federal courts have found to be an “estimated
lethal dose” when sprayed into a small closed-in cell.7 He
then had me sprayed with more gas from a smaller canister that guards
generally carry on their sides. This was a clear attempt to torture and
murder me by asphyxiation.
I was then met with violent attack by the two teams of armored guards.
After being restrained and strapped down to the bunk in 5-point
restraints8 for 48 hours (in the still contaminated cell), I
was electrocuted repeatedly. For the entire two days in restraints I was
denied water, meals, medication, and restroom breaks. This is all
documented and on record in the U.S. District Court in
Roanoke.9
Rowlette had remarked that he had hoped I’d refuse to talk to him and
that the attack he’d orchestrated was his “going away present” to me.
His spell away from ROSP was merely a “cooling off period” and a token
move by VDOC officials to create a public appearance of responding to
abusive conditions at ROSP. Indeed, there was little effect on abuse
levels after he left.
Promoting Official Criminals as the Norm
Rewarding criminally inclined prison officials in Virginia is the norm.
For example, one guard, David Allen Taylor (a prior captain at ROSP),
has been found guilty in several prisoner lawsuits of involvement in
beatings and abuses of Black prisoners. in one such case, a prisoner
YYYY YYYY, won a monetary judgment against Taylor. The state not only
paid the judgment for Taylor (your tax dollars at work), but he was
promoted in the meantime from lieutenant to captain. Just this year, he
was promoted again, to major, at one of the VDOC’s new prisons.
Another guard, William Wright, is widely known for assaulting Black
prisoners at ROSP while they are fully restrained. His attacks have
resulted in broken bones, dislocations, lacerations, and other serious
injuries. Wright was recently promoted from corporal to sergeant.
Indeed an unmistakable pattern and long-standing trend in the VDOC is to
promote guards who are being sued by prisoners for abuses while they
have litigation pending against them. This is a ploy to bolster the
professional image of abusive guards in order to create bias in their
favor. Furthermore, the state defends abusive guards against prisoner
litigation no matter how obvious their guilt and no matter what their
offense. And as occurred with David Taylor, the state pays any monetary
judgments awarded, no wonder there is no fear of consequences for
abuses.
Most of the abuses at ROSP are captured on videotape, but those records
are routinely erased, which is a crime in Virginia. 10 So
where do the illegalities end and “justice” come into play? Rowlette
won’t be prosecuted for his crimes. This contributes to the cavalier
attitude of officials towards the very laws they are sworn to uphold.
Indeed what is a man like Rowlette doing running a prison? Ain’t prisons
in Amerika supposed to exist to punish and deter criminals? Where are
all the tough on crime politicians when you need them?
Power to the People!
Notes;
1 In Part 6 Section II of the Rules of the
Supreme Court of Virginia, “Introduction,” the Supreme Court states:
“any person practicing law without being duly authorized or licensed is
guilty of a misdemeanor.” The statue under which this crime is enforced
is Code of Virginia section 54.1-3904. The Supreme Court has promulgated
a set of Unauthorized Practice Rules (UPR) which outline some specific
acts which constitute a criminal unauthorized practice of law.
Rowlette’s actions violate the following UPR’s:
“UPR 3-101. Attorney Client Relationship”: (A) An agency shall not
disrupt the relationship of confidence and trust which must exist
between a lawyer and his client.
“UPR 9-101. Holding Out as an
Expert”: (A) A non-lawyer shall not hold himself out as authorized to
furnish another advice or service under circumstances which imply his
possession of legal knowledge.”
Prisoners also have a constitutional and civil privacy right to
confidential telephone calls to their attorneys. See Tucker v.
Randall. 948 F 2d. 388, 391 (7th Cir. 1991).
2 It is
a federal crime to obstruct or delay delivery or processing of U.S.
Mails. See Title 18 United States Code sections 1702-1708. Prisoners
have a constitutional right to privacy in mail to and from “any
identifiable attorney either representing or being asked to represent a
prisoner in relation to any criminal or civil problem.” See Taylor
v. Sterrett, 532 F 2d 462, 474 (5th Cir. 1976).
3 The
entire report can be read and downloaded at the Human Rights Watch
website at:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/redonion/
4
The U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment protects prisoners from “cruel and
unusual punishment.” The federal courts have ruled that officials
violate the 8th Amendment when they deliberately “provoke an incident so
as to allow” them to attack a prisoner “under guise of maintaining order
or defending” themselves. Miller v. Leathers, 913 F. 2d 1085,
1088 (4th Cir. 1990).
5 As XXXX’s incident exemplifies,
the abuses at ROSP cannot be dismissed as the actions of a few
unsupervised low-level staff, but rather was approved by the VDOC’s
highest administrators. The torture, sexual degradation and abuses at
Abu Ghraib were dismissed as the acts of a handful of “renegade”
soldiers acting without authority. These soldiers, when targeted for
prosecutions, contended that they were doing as instructed by high level
military officials, which likely they were, just like at
ROSP.
6 Under 18 United States Code, sections 241 and 242,
it is a crime for prison officials to violate prisoners’ civil and
constitutional rights.
7 Based upon tests of
pharmacological experts, the federal courts have found that caustic gas
is lethal in doses of just 6 grams “in the confines of a small cell.”
See Williams v. Benjamin 77 F 3d 756, 764 (4th Cir.
1996).
8 5-point restraints is a process where a prisoner
is handcuffed and leg shackled to the frame of a steel bunk inside a
cell spread eagle on his/her back. A thick strap is then secured across
his/her chest to prevent the body from being able to raise up or
move.
9 See case file of Kevin Johnson v. Page True,
et al.
10 Under Code of Virginia section 18.2-472 it
is a crime for any “public officer” to make any false entry into or
destroy any government record. Under this statute any such offense
committed by an officer “shall” result in the permanent forfeiture of
his office and he shall forever be barred from holding any public office
in Virginia ever again.
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