|
FRANKIE DELISE February 7, 2001 Frankie is a contributor to The Tallahassee Project, available summer 2001 Dear Website My name is Frankie Delise. My friend Becky Stewart has put together some of us ladies' stories that were sent to you about prison sentences than the lengthy amount of time the feds give out for so little. Becky told me you were planning on using my story but wanted to know more, only she really didn't get into details as I'm now still federal but being housed in a state prison in Virginia. She only said you wanted an update. Well, life right now isn't the greatest. The BOP [Bureau of Prisons] sent 228 federal inmates to this Maximum security prison via an agreement between BOP & DOC [Department of Corrections Virginia]. We're locked in the unit except to go straight to and meals. Absolutely nothing to stimulate your mind or body, you just sit there and vegetate. It's like night and day from how the federal prisons are. Upon my arrival here I sent both the courts and the prosecutor a notification of my new address & even my newly issue state number with the F behind it for federal. We no longer have any rights under federal policy while here and must abide by all Dept. of Corrections rules including the one that says we have to cut our hair. That caused a pretty good size mess so they just threw a bunch of feds into segregation to make their point that we would abide by their rules. It seems the same rules aren't enforced with the state inmates though, just the feds. While in Tallahassee after being told we were being sent here we were told that those of us coming here were all sentenced out of this area. That's half true. They said they were getting us closer to our families. Yet in federal prison visitation is about 22 hours from Friday night to Monday night total, and here it's one hour per weekend. They've got us closer all right. Anyway, they've finally stocked a fed law library here. Everything is on CD ROM & impossible to do any research with, since you have to know exactly what case you are looking for and have the person working there pull it up for you. As I said, impossible to do any research - that and the fact that you must put in a request to use the library. It takes a week to get answered with no appointment date, then you get ½ hour there which doesn't afford you time to do anything. I seem to have got off track. As I was saying, though I gave notice of my change of address, the prosecutor sent his response to Tallahassee postdated November 29. I had ten days to respond and object to it. Needless to say, by the time it got sent back here I'd missed my deadline date. I'm quite sure it was done purely by accident. I wrote to the court explaining about the situation here and that I had no way to object to the government's response since there was no way for me to do any research, and asked that the court either appoint me counsel or grant me a stay until a further time when I was back in hopefully a federal prison. My judge wrote back saying since I'd already filed my 2255 [appeal] there was no reason for me to be appointed counsel, and by a stay she assumed I meant an extension. Now a stay and an extension are two very different things, and she's well aware of that. But she gave me a 30 day extension. I haven't figured out what she thinks I can do in another 30 days if I haven't been able to do it since arriving in this hellhole. She went even further to say that I'd filed my motion, the prosecutor had responded, and she didn't see why I felt the need to add anything more since the decision was now hers. So that tells me she has every intention of denying me, and I'll try to prepare to go to appeals court but it's going to be a real trick from here. So I'm really just kind of stuck without an attorney, as I can't do the research myself from in here. The feds covered their butts by being able to say we have everything federal here, only they leave out the part about having reasonable access to it [a law library]. I read the part of the contract between BOP and DOC to keep us here. The feds are paying $78.12 per day per inmate. From the garbage food we're served I'd say the 12 cents goes for that. Almost 7 million dollars for the one year, and the contract says it can be automatically renewed for another. Because of this transfer [to Fluvanna], I should have a very good chance of losing what I'm fighting for and nobody gives a damn. All that time because I wouldn't tell the feds what they wanted to hear, which wasn't the truth. Only the truth isn't anything they care about. I found that out a bit late. I've got a 4 point leadership role enhancement [of my sentence] and a 2 point gun enhancement for a perfectly legal gun that was registered in my name in this state. 2 points for possession of a dangerous weapon - my legal gun that was in my pocketbook in a holster on my kitchen counter when the DEA came thru my door. I'm sure some kingpin selling half grams for 50 dollars. Meanwhile the War on Drugs rages on, and those that commit violent crimes get a fraction of the time I did. Had I killed someone I wouldn't have gotten the time I did. I hope I covered whatever it was you might have wanted to know. If not, feel free to ask whatever you want. I have nothing but time, and plenty of it to respond. Take care.
|
