And just in case NC’s book choice was not up your alley – this is the official start of our new Arizona Book Club!
Their choice this go round….
The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell!
I read this book a few months ago, so I will be passing on this first read, but my opinion – I enjoyed it! I would definitely give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I hope they enjoy it as much.
A side note to the Arizona Book Club – I was told I could not order from my usual book supplier for Arizona. I was also told to try Hamilton Book. Wow. This is not an advertisement, but if you want to join us on this read – the paperback costs only $3.95! I couldn’t really believe that. Again, not an advertisement, but as the sponser of these book clubs, that was very much appreciated. In addition to that good news, the Arizona readers intend to donate their books to the library when they get done reading. I think that is a win for everybody!
The NC Book Club has been in existence for about a year and a half now, and we are going strong. This week we started The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood. I was surprised when a member chose The Handmaid’s Tale by the same author last month. And, again, I’m surprised by another member choosing the follow up to that book.
That is one aspect of our NC book club that I find fascinating – each individual person’s book choice when it is their turn. I would not have suspected any of the titles we have read. And the choices are all so unique.
So, our summer reading will be wrapping up with The Testaments. If you want to read with us, feel free, and you can message me anytime with feedback or thoughts, or if you want to pass along any messages to the book club members themselves!
Solitary confinement, isolation – the hole. Help me to understand the impact on an individual, whether yourself, someone else, or as a whole. Share an aspect of this method of punishment that I can’t understand, never having experienced it.
Woven into the purpose of prisons is the idea of rehabilitation. Prisons are not designed to be the end. They aren’t viewed as the ‘disposal’ of people. The majority of society perceives, is under the impression, prisons are places of punishment and preparation for a more productive life. How does solitary confinement fit into that design?
Every writer I have ever encountered has either had first hand experience with solitary confinement or has witnessed its use and the consequences. Help me to understand what that means.
Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate.
We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit. Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less. Poetry is considered, as long as it is inspired by the prompt.
Submissions can be handwritten.
As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.
PRIZES:
First Place: $75 Second Place: $50 Third Place: $25
DEADLINE: September 30, 2022. Decisions will be posted on or before October 31, 2022.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Walk In Those Shoes Writing Contest Entry P.O. Box 70092 Henrico, Virginia 23255
Footnote: Entries that do not follow the prompt are not passed on to the judges.
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Our Book Club has been off to a great start in 2022. One of our members just made the next selection –
The books were ordered and shipped to our book club members on NC’s Death Row this morning. It usually takes us about four or five weeks to read our book before we discuss it. If you want to read along, we’d love your thoughts. Free free to reach out to me directly, or I can give you the address of one of our book club members at Central Prison to send your thoughts to.
Recently, I was thrilled to see a post in social media regarding a successful model of a corrections facility in Nebraska intended to give women a safe and structured place to prepare to reenter society. The post was accompanied by a photo of a lobby that was clean, comfortable and modern looking. There was art on the walls. There was a photo of a cafeteria with typical cafeteria furniture, long tables and standard stools, but there was artwork and it appeared very clean and painted in a soft blue – nothing fancy, but certainly a nice place to eat. The description spoke of an area outside for children to play, how the facility encouraged interaction between those that lived there and their supporters on the outside, as well as classrooms. There were several positive comments after mine, and then there was this one –
“Wow, nicer than a lot of homes in Lincoln. Guess they deserve that?”
And that is the inspiration for our writing contest. NOT who deserves what. We won’t waste time trying to figure out who deserves what. Rather…
PROMPT: Have you ever received or witnessed someone else receive ‘grace’ – unmerited mercy and compassion – and how did that impact you or them?
My best bit of advice for any entry – remember the prompt. There are a lot of ways to approach it, as long as the prompt is the focus, your entry will be considered.
Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate.
We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit. Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less. Poetry is considered, as long as it is inspired by the prompt.
Submissions can be handwritten.
As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.
PRIZES:
First Place: $75 Second Place: $50 Third Place: $25
DEADLINE: December 31, 2021. Decisions will be posted on or before January 31, 2022.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Walk In Those Shoes Writing Contest Entry P.O. Box 70092 Henrico, Virginia 23255
FOOTNOTE:WITS was inspired, in part, by the story of a boy named Jamycheal Mitchell. He stole some food – snacks – a haul of $5.05. He was mentally ill, but rather than being transferred to a facility that could help him after his arrest, he was left in a jail in Virginia to essentially starve to death. He was just 24 years old when he was arrested. He was dead several months later. ‘Wasting’ is a word used in his cause of death. In the months it took him to die, I wonder if anyone who passed by him wondered if he ‘deserved’ that.
Deserve? What does anybody deserve and how different would our world be if nobody spent time worrying if anyone else received compassion – whether they ‘deserve’ it or not?
We just finished up The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig. Overall, we felt it was an easy read, entertaining, but a little predictable. One member compared it to his all-time favorite movie, It’s A Wonderful Life.
This was also the third book read by our newly formed club. If anyone wants to join us, the book we just ordered is I Am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes, chosen by a member, as are all the books. We will be rating all future books on a five-star scale.
If you would like to read along and forward your thoughts on I Am Pilgrim to the club, feel free to send me messages here. I will pass them along to the group.
My grandmother died a day after my quick conviction. “She saw you on TV after you were sentenced to death and she died. You killed her by breaking her heart.” I got hate mail from my own flesh and blood after my conviction. – Charles Mamou
Charles Mamou’s family was divided, according to Mamou, half quickly disowning him and wishing he were dead.
But, what did they know, really? They knew the same thing I did when I first looked up articles on Charles Mamou, a new writer for WITS, what the prosecution wanted them to know – what the jury, the defense, and the media heard. I read various versions of a brutal, lone murderer who sexually assaulted a girl before killing her in an abandoned house. It wasn’t a wonder he got hate mail. I’d learned to look past the headlines, things not always as they seem.
After reading the transcripts, I got a slightly clearer picture. As the prosecution’s story goes, Charles Mamou went on a killing rampage sparked by a drug deal gone wrong, drove off with the victim, sexually assaulted her, and murdered her in a very hard to find backyard in Houston – a city he didn’t live in. All the other individuals involved in the drug deal, all residents of Houston, slept after the initial drug deal and knew nothing, a couple of them testifying for the state…
So – I looked even closer. If it were a card game, there would be money on the table, not a life, and some would say the deck was ‘stacked’. It turns out, the state had information that not only could have supported Charles Mamou’s claims of innocence, but the information could have also led to finding out what really took place that night. Evidence that existed all along and more recent interviews reveal a few things. The state had a list of phone calls that were made that night. All of the callers in those records, the individuals involved in the drug deal, from the ‘cooker’, to the driver, to the introducer, were not sleeping that night according to their phones. Not only that, recent interviews put them all in the parking lot of Howard Scott’s apartment that night, along with Charles Mamou – who was supposed to be off on a lone sexual assault and murder. If Charles Mamou was in the parking lot along with the car he was driving – so was the victim. Which is what Charles Mamou has always asserted – that he fled the drug deal gone wrong and drove back to Howard Scott’s apartment complex.
In the absence of shared information, the existing phone records, witnesses were not called to testify, and those who were called testified they were sleeping – even though the state knew their phones were in use. Does an attorney have an obligation to bring it to the attention of the court or his witness when they are not telling the truth and the attorney is aware of it?
Phone calls that should have been traced, never were – no one will ever know where the calls were placed from. They could have been dialed from the backyard where the body was found. They could have been placed from anywhere in Texas. The calls would have certainly helped determine what happened that night. The callers never had to answer questions about where they were when they placed the calls. The owner of the phone line they called – never had to explain who was calling and what they said. The man whose phone was receiving the calls testified for the state, saying he was asleep and his phone was not ringing. Regardless of records indicating that was not true, the state’s witness was never corrected by the prosecutor. No one questioned why his phone was ringing until 3:43 a.m. the night the victim was murdered and why one phone call went out at 3:59 a.m. requesting a cab – yet the state had information these calls took place.
One of the callers to the home did the same, testifying for the state and saying he went home to bed that night and didn’t use his phone. The witness and driver in the drug deal did not have to explain why his cell phone dialed Howard Scott’s apartment at 2:37 a.m. or where he was at when the call was made. Rather, he testified he had went to bed.
The other callers on the record never even had to step foot in a courtroom. They were never called by either side. But, all the callers were up and about that night, not sleeping, and witnesses have since said they saw all the callers in one parking lot that night – Howard Scott’s parking lot.
It isn’t surprising the jury came back with a guilty verdict, no more surprising than it would be in a poker game with no aces in the cards dealt to the other players, but rather held in the dealer’s hand. Charles Mamou certainly looked the part, he was a drug dealer. Just in case though, they hung on to one more card. The sexual assault. While fighting for the death penalty, the prosecution called him ‘vicious’, ‘ruthless’, and ‘cold-blooded’. The jury was told he ‘devastated and destroyed’, that he ‘marches her to the back, and he makes her commit oral sodomy, makes her suck his penis. Imagine that, ladies and gentleman’.
While saying those words to the jury the prosecution knew not only about the phone records that could have been used to defend Mamou, they also knew something else. There was a rape kit collected from the body along with trace evidence, and that kit was collected by the medical examiner who did not make one note of it in his autopsy report. He also did not breathe one word of it in his testimony. The prosecutor’s office not only knew about the collection of the evidence, they requested that it be processed and they had received the results. The results indicated there was ‘no semen found’. In addition to that, trace evidence was collected that Mamou never knew about. For two decades – he never knew. Neither did the jury, or his family, or the victim’s family.
There is no nice way to say it. The state had information that not only could have supported Charles Mamou’s claims of innocence, but the information could have also led to finding out what happened that night. Evidence and interviews that have since taken place tell us a few things. All of the callers in those records were not sleeping that night. Recent interviews put them all in the parking lot of Howard Scott’s apartment, along with Charles Mamou – who was supposed to be off on a lone sexual assault and murder. Involved parties, according to the phone records, were not called to testify, and those who did testified they were sleeping – regardless of what the state knew.
Charles Mamou absorbed the anger for the loss of his grandmother. He had no other choice. Since his conviction, he has been living in a 9 x 6 cell in solitary confinement. No one sees his tears. No one can measure his depression. People have moved on with their lives, his children have been raised, his grandchildren don’t know him. As it stands now, he will be executed. His appeals are exhausted, he is waiting on a date, and if his parents are still alive when it comes, they will watch their son be belted down to a table as poison gets pumped into his veins and he takes his final breath. Is that the justice we should be shooting for?
Many anti-death penalty activists find their stance not because they are necessarily opposed to the death penalty. They base their stance on the knowledge the deck sometimes gets stacked. Not every prosecutor is as interested in finding out exactly what happened as they are in securing a win. If anyone wanted to know what happened to the victim twenty years ago, those phone calls would have been traced. The individuals making the calls would have been interviewed, their stories documented, statements taken and compared. It defies logic to even try and argue differently, to suggest those individuals not be interviewed and those calls not be traced. A girl was murdered – every stone should have been turned over to find out what happened. Instead – nothing. There is not one recorded interview with two of those callers that night, both of whom are said to have been in the parking lot, and one of who’s name is recorded as being the caller for a cab from Howard Scott’s apartment at 3:59 a.m. Yet – not one interview with him or the other individual calling the apartment and seen in the parking lot that night. As a matter of fact, Howard Scott’s first interview with police that was performed on the first day he was transported to HPD – is not in any file. It does not exist. I was told, “Not everything makes it into the file.”
What could have been discovered if, in 1999, this case had been investigated and the phone records and physical evidence shared? Where were the phone calls made from? What would the callers have said about what they were doing that night had they been asked? What would the recipient of the phone calls have said if he had been confronted with the question, rather than allowed to say – ‘I was sleeping’?
The window of opportunity on what could have been determined is shut. The Harris County prosecutor’s office did that, not Charles Mamou. The deck was stacked against Mamou, the victim’s family, Mamou’s family, the jury, and anyone who has ever read the story. Everybody loses. The prosecution may have felt not sharing the information they had would secure a ‘win’ for their office, but how is that winning? You can’t win when you cheat, it’s a façade, a farce. One person does not get to decide what part of the puzzle we can use. To argue a case in a court of law, what people look towards for truth, justice, equality and fairness, while keeping information to yourself, and not only doing that but also exploiting the lack of knowledge and arguing scenarios such as witnesses sleeping and sexual assault – that is not a win.
There is also a facebook page dedicated to sharing Charles Mamou’s troubling case.
TO CONTACT CHARLES MAMOU: Charles Mamou #999333 Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53 3872 South FM 350 Livingston, TX 77351
You can also reach him through jpay.com.
SIGN HIS PETITION – LEARN ABOUT HIS CASE. Charles Mamou is a long time WITS writer. He is part of our writing family and his case has been studied and shared here for a couple years. Please sign a petition requesting that his case be truly investigated – for the first time. If you learn enough about his case, you will likely agree, there was not much done in the way of investigation. What we have been able to learn, supports that. Please sign.
Our North Carolina Book Club is an amazing bunch. The club is based in Raleigh, NC, on Death Row, and we are starting our next book this week, chosen by one of the members. This particular club has chosen to determine book titles on a rotating basis, each member having a turn. That in itself has proven to be interesting – pondering what a book choice says.
If you would like to join us, our next book is The Shape Of Water. They should receive their copies on Wednesday of this week, so you have plenty of time to order yourself one. The group consists of Roger, Antwan, Rodney, Warren, Marcos, and Terry. Our last book, The Hate You Give, started some in depth conversations about race and perceptions that we never would have had. Sometimes its not always about the book, but the insight we gain through the conversations the book inspires.
Feel free to reach out to me, if you would like to contact the group or are reading along and would like to send in your thoughts on the book for their conversation in five weeks.
I had been thinking of the next theme for a contest. It came to me as I was thinking about one of our writers. He was sentenced to death over twenty years ago in a case that would be laughable if it hadn’t started with a death and resulted in a death sentence. Any reasonable person can look at the evidence and wonder – how did he get there, and why is he still there?
As an observer of his and many other cases, the biggest challenge has been the resistance from within the very system to acknowledge flaws or mistakes made within that community. As I reflect on that, I think – it would take one person with a lot of grit to take the case on, buck the system and do the right thing, rather than follow the norm – just one person. They do exist.
The Oxford dictionary defines grit as ‘courage and resolve, strength of character’. Tell me a story, describe a person you know or have witnessed – display true grit. Resolve in the face of repercussions, ignoring what people are comfortable with and doing the right thing, over and over again if necessary. Courage to take the path of most resistance for a just cause.
Inspire us. Give us an example we can look up to. It could be a family member, friend, or someone you witnessed from afar. It could be in prison or out of prison, an action taken by a fellow inmate or an officer.
That’s the theme of this contest: Describe a display of ‘inspirational grit’ you have seen or been touched by or heard about.
Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate.
We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit. Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less.
Submissions can be handwritten.
As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.
PRIZES:
First Place: $75 Second Place: $50 Third Place: $25
DEADLINE: August 31, 2021. Decisions will be posted on or before September 30, 2021.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Walk In Those Shoes Writing Contest Entry P.O. Box 70092 Henrico, Virginia 23255
I’m truly anxious to hear the stories of people to inspire us, people who remind us that grit does exist.
As a reminder, WITS gives away a book each month to one ‘Writer Of The Month’. All it takes to be considered is to have an essay posted on the site that month. The last book was Ordinary Grace, and the titles are often books we use in our book clubs.
Charles Mamou is a WITS writer. He has always maintained his innocence. He has been on death row for over twenty years. There is evidence and information the Harris County prosecution had that Charles Mamou didn’t know existed for over two decades. That information could have been used to determine what happened to the victim if anyone had pursued it.
Nothing physically ties Charles Mamou to the scene of the crime, other than the testimony of witnesses that were involved in a drug deal with him that night. There is not a fingerprint of his there. There is not a footprint of his there. No witnesses saw him there. There was a shell casing – that cannot be tied definitively to any weapon, but no weapon was ever found. Mamou was from out of town, the men who testified were not. The body was found in a location even the police described as difficult to locate. One of the witnesses worked for Orkin – on the side of town where the body was found behind a house for sale.
The individuals who testified against Charles Mamou were apparently never charged for their involvement in any of the events that took place that night – and phone records the prosecution had access to indicate two of those witnesses were not telling the truth on the stand.
A letter never presented to the jury and written by the ‘star’ witness who said Charles Mamou confessed to him says, “I’m glad you didn’t tell me shit about that cause I don’t wanna know shit, I feel better off that way.”
Charles Mamou has waited long enough for someone to help him. He’s not asking for any breaks – he’s asking for an investigation into his case, one that includes all the evidence the Houston Police Department had twenty years ago, which includes trace evidence obtained in a rape kit that was never shared with Mamou.
Please sign the above letter asking the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to reinvestigate this case.
UPDATE: This post was temporarily removed, after I was contacted and told I couldn’t share this information. After a thorough review, I disagree. The information came from trial transcripts that Charles Mamou gave me access to. In addition to that, the other records are public and the letter was written to Charles Mamou and belongs to him. Walk In Those Shoes is about writers in prison and trying to understand their experience with the justice system. If I can’t share public information without being warned and told not to – is it a wonder people end up on death row that are innocent?
