Were you able to sue for damages? It's quite flagrant that your rights have been infringed upon, from reading this.

Or do you just not have recourse?

It's actually fucked-up that I totally forgot about this until writing this post. I find that my brain tries to erase a lot of the shit I've been through and block it out.

I'm a serial litigant and I should have sued. You have a one year statute of limitation on most torts here in Illinois, so I've blown past that, but on federal constitutional violations the SoL is 2 years, so I could still sue for that and get relief. I'll have to think about it since I am very weary and litigation takes literally years, and often more than a decade. I'm years into litigation with the same police dept. right now about another constitutional violation and it is just 100-page motions each way every month and it gets very tiring. Millions of dollars of lawyer fees just to avoid paying $10K settlement on a case they have already lost.

I absolutely understand - I'm sorry of the situation you are in, I'm certain it's exhausting, and it shouldn't be on you.

I'm way out of my depth, but maybe you could reach out to victim's advocacy groups (you might very well have already!) to get some measure of support and guidance. As you mentionned, the SoL is limiting for your case, and it could be a good idea to see if you could file something and delay it until the other litigation is done. Again - I'm as out of my depth as can be.

Also - just a thought - maybe you could reach out to news outlets or legal oriented content producers (Legal Eagle, Attorney Tom and the likes). The story you told here is harrowing and most journalists would jump on it right away, which could possibly be helpful, but it adds a lot to your plate.

Wish you all the best going forward.

Thank you.

You also reminded me that I never heard back from any of the misconduct investigations I started against the various officers. I will FOIA now and update. There was one incident where I was walking out of jail and two officers from another jurisdiction, operating outside of their legal authority, cuffed me up, without any arrest warrant and put me in jail and I was held for over three years on that one alone. I want to see what the reports on that one say. I also filed one against the sheriff as I found an old law which says it is a crime if the sheriff does not provide detainees with three hot meals a day, and yet we only got one a day. It is literally a crime. But how do you report a police officer committing a crime? It is practically impossible, especially when he is the guy in charge.

I’m curious, with so much time in jail and so much ongoing litigation, how do you make money to cover food & shelter? Do you have children or do you find this activism gets in the way of that kind of lifestyle?

I don't. I get my food from food pantries, and a friend has given me temporary shelter. Luckily I have no children, which is a huge blessing I thought about often during my decade locked up. I would have hated to leave children behind, especially as jail visits can often be close to non-existent and the phones were too expensive and too difficult to access.

are you saying that "well cooked" food means "hot meal"?

That is my interpretation, essentially. We were given no cooked food for two of the three meals. One was peanut butter and two slices of bread, and the other was a slice of cold meat and two slices of bread. While you could say that the bread was "well cooked", that clearly isn't the intention of the law.

I don't think Americans know how uncivilized our prison system is, especially compared to a lot of Europe. Or maybe they do, and we're just a very vindictive society. Sorry you had to experience it first hand.

As an American, who has spent time in a prison in Europe/Germany and was put in solitary confinement under 24/7 monitor supervision, I tend to disagree. The reason why I was put there: I claimed to be a US citizen and wanted to talk to my embassy. Since I don't know US prison, take my opinion with a grain of salt. But fuck Europe!

After seeing a few documentaries on them (but never going to jail in the US or EU), I am now of the opinion that European jails seem as fucked up, but have a much more humane veneer. They are much more likely to give prisoners huge quantities of psychoactive drugs, and often essentially force them to go to intense therapy sessions, which could be considered a form of psychological torture. US jails don't do any of that, but have a lot of other issues.

US guards often push drugs for side money

(Guards who are overworked and underpaid)

I remember this being a thing that happened in the prison drama Oz, and thinking that phenomenon being BS, but I've heard enough stories of guards bringing in contraband that it seems to happen at an oddly high frequency. Is the prison system somewhat complicit with the drug running?

Yes. Go read up on torture island aka Rikers

Yes you can buy drugs in prison freely. You can even buy cell phones but they have devices to detect cell phones in your cell.

Who brings them in? Possibly guards but visitors can also bring in a lot. Pretrial detention is tougher. The drugs are brought into prison and then smuggled into pretrial detention.

When I was locked up a few months ago, I would say on an average cell block maybe 80%+ of the prisoners were using drugs? Higher on some decks, lower on others. It would be a lot higher if people could afford them.

Edit: I'd never seen anything except weed before I went to jail. Inside jail I saw and was offered every single drug known to man in whatever quantity I wanted.

From being in jail, the jails do give the prisoners whatever psychoactive drugs are needed to zombify them.

Do you have the names of documentaries handy by chance?

Here's one I happen to know (with English subs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCMt7ynK9jg

"TBS" is "prison with psychiatric care". It's a bit complex because you first get your punishment (prison term) and then after that additional TBS treatment (until you're "safe to be released", basically).

I'm not claiming this is representative for Europe, or even the rest of the Dutch prisons. However, everything else I've seen over the years from most European countries gave me the impression the average is closer to that than what I've seen/heard from US prisons.

Solitary confinement on its own is already controversial enough, but being pushed in a cell naked and literally nothing to do?! What the actual fuck?!

> and often essentially force them to go to intense therapy sessions, which could be considered a form of psychological torture. US jails don't do any of that, but have a lot of other issues.

It was my impression that, under the US system, those convicted of crimes related to drug use are very often required to go to therapy.

Yes, many crimes require therapy as part of a release plan in the USA. The therapy supplied is pretty awful quality and the people attending aren't there by choice, but because it is required to stop them returning to prison, so it has almost zero effect on their rehabilitation. From my experience, at least 50% of those released from prison are returned pretty quickly for drug possession.

There must be more to the story than just that.

What do you want to know?

What was the context of you saying you wanted to talk to the embassy? I have a suspicion you were already in trouble for something by that point.

Well, yes, I was in trouble because I was in prison already and my public defender did not pick up his phone for 6 months. In this situation, I said I am a US citizen and demanded to talk to my embassy. And after I insisted on this for two or three weeks, I was put into solitary confinement.

Even talked to one of the highest person in charge. Can you proof that you are a US citizen? Let me call my embassy. They did not allow this. I suggested they call the embassy but they rejected this.

I even wrote to my judge a complain and he said there "is no reason for this". I have it in writing.

This is fairly typical of the attitude towards a person once they are incarcerated. No prison employee is going to go out of their way to look something up, or make a phone call. There is no oversight on prison employees (outside of doing the minimum to make sure they don't beat the prisoners too frequently or openly). Laziness is prevalent inside the justice system. No-one is in a hurry to do anything, especially if it is outside their job description.

There is an international treaty (Vienna Convention) that requires governments to inform arrestees of their right to speak to their embassy. The problem is that treaty violations aren't really enforceable without an underlying local statute to implement them.

It was only recently that Illinois made it a statutory requirement to implement the treaty by adding "(b-5) This subsection is intended to implement and be interpreted consistently with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the United States is a party." to their arrest law:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=0...

The hands of the idiot judge who run the prison were shaking when the letter of the embassy arrived. Unfortunately the US embassy did not want to send a note of protest, because I am a dual citizen.

"There is an international treaty (Vienna Convention) that requires governments to inform arrestees of their right to speak to their embassy. The problem is that treaty violations aren't really enforceable without an underlying local statute to implement them."

Well, a diplomatic protest note from the US embassy would have worked wonders to the careers of the people involved in this clusterfuck.

I think Americans' view of prison is probably harsher than reality, given that they are informed by Hollywood. Prison is mostly dull.

Horribly, horribly dull. That was the worst part. I'm used to using my brain 16 hours a day. Jail was torture because you're just staring at the walls all day.

There have been numerous cases in recent times where European courts would refuse extradition requests by the USA on the grounds that America cannot be trusted to not violate their human rights (even if they specifically promise it).

In one case, the judge referred to the American punitive system as "medieval"

There was a story recently about a German courts refusal to extradite a prisoner to the UK due to poor prison conditions - massive overcrowding being a significant concern in particular.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/05/germany-refu...

I have spent 21.5 days in solitary confinement. It’s inhumane torture. The reasons why one might find themselves in such a scenario does nothing to ameliorate that simple fact. It’s inhumane. It’s torture.

And what is its purpose? It is clearly 100% punitive as there is no rehabilitative part to time in solitary.

The first time I did 10 days for a non-crime. I had my trial on day 9, was found not guilty and released the next day back to population. That's some Alice in Wonderland shit right there -- do the time, then maybe do the crime?

The stated purpose within the block of isolation cells I was held in was protective custody—as in someone upstairs decided that you might cause harm to yourself or others if placed with the general population. This might include things like a mental health condition or crisis, an altercation with other inmates, the specific nature of your legal situation[1], and/or if you tell them during intake that you’re transsexual (this may have changed in the ~15-years since my experience). Of course, they were not under any obligation to explain their rationale for placement decisions, so these are just some of the examples I heard from guards when asked, not an official position or statement on their part.

For a few of those categories, and for anyone who’s never experienced it, this may sound like a benefit—or at least somewhat preferable to the risks one might otherwise face in the general population. But for anyone struggling with a mental health condition, or who might not be aware of what category they’re in or how long they might be there, the conditions can frequently be an unbearable psychological burden on top of what is almost certainly an already frightening and traumatic situation.

I had a cell that measured roughly 9’x4’, but because of the service column and toilet, there was not a single place where I could stand or lie down and stretch my arms out fully without encountering an obstacle. This was where I spent 23-hours of every single day I was there. The other hour was spent in a larger cell at the end of the hall with a shower and a payphone that cost my family $20 for every 15-minutes to speak with me. No windows, no daylight, no respite. The Chaplin brought a book cart around every few weeks from which you would be given something at random. Anything worth reading you could easily finish in a few days, even if pacing yourself. If you’re unlucky, you just get some Scientology bullshit. Until the very last day I was there, I had no way of knowing when I would get out. My attorney told me it could take more than a year to get to a trial. My family could not afford my bond. It wasn’t until a second surprise bond hearing 3-weeks later that I would be given an opportunity for relief that was within reach. The not knowing, the endless hours to spend with spiraling thoughts and no distractions, it’s the purest despair imaginable.

It’s one of many indefensible features of our justice system that needs to be consigned to the dark details of America’s ongoing history of atrocities.

[1] Whether you’re charged with a crime while also providing witness testimony against another inmate or that is deemed particularly vital, or the crime you’re accused of is particularly noteworthy or likely to motivate violence against you (inmates read newspapers, and word will generally spread of anyone who’s in for anything newsworthy), etc..

You had the same bond problem I had, except it took me 8.5 years to pay my bond :( I've still not been to trial yet and it is over 10.5 years. After I paid my bond I did another 9 months though because I interviewed for a newspaper about police harassment and the public defender's office Tweeted in support of the article, and I reposted it.

Could you contact the ACLU? 10 years without trial is egregious, perhaps they can make some movement.

I've touched base with a couple of similar outfits. The problem is that it's not that exceptional. I know people above 11 years waiting for trial here in Chicago.

This really is beyond fucked up. It's the kind of thing that creates legitimate 'enemies of the state'.

I think most decent people would be legitimate enemies of the state today if they had any idea just how sinister, profound, and widespread the injustices that it has institutionalized and normalized really are.

Most people have a terribly broken mental model and complete misunderstanding of the criminal justice system in America. It simply doesn’t touch most people, and they got all of their “knowledge” of it from mass media, which perpetuates the completely mythological concepts that people carry about it.

Then again, maybe not. The idea that prisoners get raped in prison is widely held and nobody seems to find this to be that much of a problem.

The degree to which this has been normalized is frightening. Take the Guantanamo bay scandal(s), you'd think that there would be some kind of massive blowback from that but it actually ended up being almost a speedbump in terms of the international response.

People only cared about Guantanamo Bay because they were told to by the media. This isn't to say people shouldn't have cared, but that most people are assigned their beliefs until those beliefs are no longer useful.

> The idea that prisoners get raped in prison is widely held and nobody seems to find this to be that much of a problem.

Worse. People seem to think it's part of the punishment. They want it to happen.