TTSOML #121: "Knowledge Is Power" (Wenatchee)

Another thing I was doing, which first exposed me to the mess that is Wenatchee, was that when I was still in college, I was taking a class called "Juvenile Justice". It had a strong community service component and the class examined issues in jails, in the justice system, rehabilitation services and statistics, laws regarding sentencing, and gang behavior, particularly in youth. We had to choose a field to work in and I chose to do my volunteer work at The Department Of Justice Juvenile center in Portland, Oregon. I would be studying recidivism rates in youth returning to jail, family court law for youth, and helping out with various projects.

I enjoyed the class and out of the books we could select to read, I chose a couple about the conditions of jails in California and particularly, about certain writing programs for inmates.

One of the main texts was an enormous book, a hardcover, called "Criminal Procedure", which went over all the federal laws and requirements, and contained interesting stories and case histories.

I had to have a criminal background check done, which was done, and then received a pass and badge which allowed me through security. I continued with this class while I was commuting to Washington state.

It was at this time, that I discovered one of my cousins friends, whom I'd hosted as a guest at my house a year earlier, had been charged with an assault crime and was in jail awaiting charges. He was just 18 or pretty young, but outside the juvenile system. I decided to visit him when I was in town, and ask him questions about things too, since I was taking a class about gang stuff, and he had been part of a gang, unbenownst (until later) to me.

When I met with him, he told me what the jail conditions were like, and how his public defender was. He'd been sitting there a long time and had a very difficult time reaching his lawyer. At the same time, he asked me if I'd talk to one of his cellmates, who had seen me when passing by after visitation, or maybe noticed me after I gave my cousin's friend a photo of me, him, and my cousin all together. I look very different there. I'd dyed my hair dark brown (did my eyebrows) and it looked natural. It was a longer bob style, and in the photo, I'm wearing my caramel colored leather jacket, and I'm standing inbetween both guys, with a smile on my face, and my arms about them.

The cellmate was allegedly with some part of the Mexican mafia, or he said the feds told him so. He was in jail for both federal and state charges, for armed robbery of a Dominoe's pizza delivery guy. He was looking at something like 6 years here and 3 years in a another place.

He, like my cousin's friend, complained about the inadequate public defense, and how long they were sitting in the Wenatchee jail without moving forward. Both of these guys had Paul Cassel as one of their public defenders. The same Paul Cassel who was later appointed to represent me regarding my son.

After talking to these guys, it became clear, they were being railroaded. It is one thing not to see the evidence and know what the crimes were exactly, but it's another thing to hear about the lack of due process. I knew something about that, already, and although I wasn't familiar with criminal law, the things I was hearing were not "okay". I started reading through my book, about Criminal Procedure, after they both gave me the story of what happened on the day or night of the incidents. I found several examples where it was clear that police in Wenatchee, or otherwise, had not followed criminal procedure. I found clear examples of other things as well, and laws about search and seizure. I was hearing a lot of stories about guys who had this or that happen, and half of the time, I was listening to them, KNOWING that their rights had been violated and that certain rules had not been followed, but knowing THEY didn't know.

Sometimes I heard things I knew were wrong, but they didn't know, sometimes they gave me information about the law directly, and other times, I learned things through the book I had on criminal procedure.

The Wenatchee jail officers started to become very hostile to me. They knew I was a college student because I gave them this ID, and they knew I was doing research for a project. I started asking questions, and they didn't like it.

Not only that, I was hearing how inmates wanted to take their cases to trial, and how they believed they had a fair shot, but their Wenatchee public defenders kept pressuring them to take plea deals. These guys were sitting around for weeks without seeing a lawyer.

One of the guys, the one who asked to see me specifically, and whom I began to visit on a regular basis, told me he knew more than his lawyer, Paul Cassel. He'd started to read some of the legal books, out of desperation, in the jail library. I saw the jail library. It is only a stack of the Washington statutes and nothing more. There is absolutely nothing else, not books for criminal or civil procedure, or for case history. Just a few books. He'd also been slandered in a newspaper, where his photo was taken, he said, depicting him as a gangbanger when he wasn't, especially at that time.

I tried to help these guys the best I could, from the outside, and apply what I was learning to my scholastics. It was sometime after I visited the Wenatchee jails that I started getting written up badly as well. I'm not saying this was why, but for timeline purposes, this is what was going on. I even spoke to their lawyer, Cassel, once or twice. I let him know his clients wanted to see him.

I told my aunt Locklyn, who worked for lawyer Kyle Flick, about what was going on. She asked who the PDs were and when I said "Cassel" she sounded confused and said he was supposed to be one of the "good ones".

Finally, after hearing about all the crap going on in the Wenatchee system, and reading my book for my class, on criminal procedure myself, I decided to give them "tools".

They said they were having to try to do their legal work themselves. I knew how that felt, with my civil case. I knew I couldn't give them legal advice, but they had a right to fair and due process, representation, and basically, a shot at justice. They weren't getting it, so I thought they could go through the book, and if they identified with anything, they could bring it up to their lawyer. Specifically, had police procedure been followed?

This is sort of what Dan Gatti did for me when he gave me a bunch of book on torts and told me to read them and see if any of them fit.

So, I tried to give them the book, through security. The last time I'd tried to send something through the Wenatchee jail, I was treated rudely. They really didn't like me, for some reason. One or two were okay, but some of the others, were not.

They have a right to receive books. The guard wouldn't take my book and I asked her why not, and if there was something I could do to make it fit regulations. She said "no" and just smirked at me. I tried another guard and they said no. I asked to speak to a supervisor. Finally, after waiting around for hours, I was told by the guard, with a smirk, "It's not a paperback." They didn't want anyone getting that book. I found out, they let other hardbacks through, and they were just telling me they didn't allow books of any kind and that they had their own library. They lied to me. After someone finally said, "It's a paperback", I marched out, drove straight to a Wenatchee Radioshack, and told this Mexican guy what had happened. I asked him if he could tear it off for me because I'd tried, and then I was going back there to make them take a "paperback". When I told him what was going on, he smiled, and nodded, and said, "knowledge is power." He knew, like I did, that some people don't want others to be informed or education, because they know knowledge is power. So he cut the cover off, and I thanked him and left.

I drove back to the Wenatchee jail, and saw the same guard, and said, putting the book on the counter, "There! Now it's a paperback!" They looked at the book and I could tell they still wanted to refuse it, but they took it, glaring at me with daggers in their eyes.

That book got read like the Bible, and gave the inmates

"all KINDS! of ideas"

Like, "Oh! Huh. There's a law against what that officer did." Hey! this happened to me too... Ummm...why isn't my PD doing this?"

Needless to say, I was very unpopular at the jail and with many of the Wenatchee police and administrators of the jail. Probably not too popular with PDs, including Paul Cassel, for looking over their shoulder and questioning them about their work.