I’ve spent the past 6,945 days and counting in solitary confinement. I keep track of days the way one has a hobby in the free world. It’s only real significance is giving me a reason to mark another ‘X’ on the calendar.
I’ve filed grievances and signed on to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit about the inhumane and draconian practices of solitary confinement and how it’s the epitome of cruel and unusual (unnecessary) punishment. Lawmakers have eased up on its use for non-death row inmates and even publicly admitted that solitary confinement causes lasting harm to anyone locked away for 10 years or longer. Such sympathy was shocking for ‘conservative’ lawmakers to admit. However, apathy is not given to male Texas death row inmates, who were excluded from the leniency. We remain in solitary.
On July 19, 2018, my last appeal was denied. Not on the merits of actual guilt, for my case on appeal has never been argued orally. In fact, a recent study by the Houston Law Review cited my case and others for the opprobrious “rubber stamping” policy that Harris County and the southern appellate courts use.
Legally, they use a loophole, declaring a case ‘Procedurally Barred’ – giving the appeal judges room to not entertain a death row inmate’s case by adopting the previous court’s opinion, word for word. I believe it’s morally and ethically wrong, unfair, and racially biased and at times motivated. But what can we do? These practices aren’t ‘new’, and a lot of men and women have been judiciously murdered using the same practices, to which I often react the only way I can, with an inhale, exhale and languorously voiced, “Fuck it!”
On Texas death row we are allowed two hours of recreational time Monday through Friday, with no movement on the weekends. If you choose to go to this ‘recreation’, you are ordered to strip nude and do the nude-dance. Then you are taken to another cell that is bigger in space than the cells we sleep in. If it’s indoor recreation, you are placed in a cage in front of the other 14 cells in that section. You can walk around like a lab rat, in circles, or some guys invent a workout routine that may be part yoga, part push-ups and sit-ups, and part creativity. As long as one can sweat, for the most part, one is relatively happy. Some guys don’t work out, and instead engage in shouting conversations about legal work, or which Kardashian is the most desirable or they engage in religious debates that start off with platonic, brotherly order and become heated when there are disagreements regarding trivial interpretations of Scripture – which leads to a cussing match and the overly-used, proverbial Texas row insult, “You dick-sucker!”
Pure madness!
Outdoor recreation isn’t that much larger in size than indoor rec. There’s a netless basketball goal and an orange, rubberless basketball that one can use to play run-and-shoot alone, to see how many shots you can make. You’re surrounded by four 25-foot off-white concrete walls so you can’t see anything diagonally, only an upward view of the sky. Sometimes you’ll see a plane fly high above leaving its wasted fuel’s trail within the cerulean sky’s sea. With two major airports close by, these sights are common. This prison is close to a small highway and every now and then when it’s really quiet, you can hear the thunderous rage that screams from the pipes of a motorcycle that just opened up on the highway.
Most guys don’t like going outside in the summer because of the Texas heat and the sun’s rays that beat down on you without mercy. One can’t help but feel like a rotisserie chicken. I love it. The heat helps me sweat, and the more I sweat, the more I release stress. Plus, I like the solitude. It gives me a chance to think.
After I was denied, it took me nearly two weeks to pick myself up mentally. It is not the outcome I nor my family and supporters wanted or expected. When you’re disappointed like that, logic and one’s perspective gets thrown out the window. Desperation sets in. Your mind wonders about life after death, if it exists. You think about your family. You think about regrets. You fornicate with the idea of what you’ll miss within the carnal world. You think and think… until you need some aspirin to sooth the headache. You find yourself having so much to do, but lack the will to do it. You want to be left alone, although you are aware that loneliness isn’t what you desire. So when it’s time for me to go to recreation I always ask to go outside in the heat – alone.
I’ll run a few games, reliving my high school basketball days. Crowds cheer my jersey number, “It’s on you twenty-two! It’s on you!” After an hour of this workout, I begin to relax and think. I’m haunted by time and dates, logic, philosophy, reasoning, fantasy and reality, failure and injustice. But, not just any injustice – the injustice that was rendered upon me.
Some people are visited by the ghosts of the past, present and future – I’m visited by dates. I’m not in denial, but I can’t believe I’m here on Texas death row, for something that can be argued was never an intentional crime on anyone’s part. For something the police initially told me they knew I didn’t do.
June 29, 1999. I was brought to Harris County from Louisiana to face capital murder charges after I refused the 20 year plea deal offered by Detective Bob King, an acting agent of the DA. Why would I accept a plea deal when I wasn’t guilty and the police had suspects in custody they wanted me to testify against for the plea deal? Above all, I wasn’t a lying ass snitch, testifying to ‘whatever’ to avoid getting charged – unlike others.
I wrote the DA, who admitted at trial he received my letter, and I offered up my DNA or any forensic evidence they could collect from me. I offered to take a lie detector test. I offered whatever I could, but I refused to testify against the others.
No DNA or forensic evidence was taken from me.
July 20, 1999 was the first time I saw a state appointed lawyer, Wayne Hill, who offered me a plea deal, with no concern as to who I was or what actually happened. I refused his deal.
July 21, 1999. My first court appearance.
August 11, 1999. I was officially read the charges against me. I pleaded not guilty. I was then arraigned and had a million-dollar bond set.
September 1, 1999. I went to court, though my journal does not say why, nor do I recall.
September 7, 1999. Jury selection began, and the judge told the potential jury members, “I’m not Judge Ito (from the O.J. Simpson trial of the century case), and we will get this right. Being a jury member is like being a pallbearer. No one wants to do it, but it must be done. Think of a child. When that child acts out, we have to discipline that child.”
I was supposed to be ‘innocent until proven guilty’. The judge was making it clear to the jury, subliminally, that guilt wasn’t the issue. Those words implied I was guilty and they needn’t waste time and effort trying to assume I wasn’t.
September 29, 1999. Eleven white jurors and one Spanish lady, who was questioned relentlessly about her status as a documented US citizen, completed the picks.
October 4, 1999. My trial began. It was also the first time I met my investigator, who asked me if there was anything I wanted him to investigate. Really? He didn’t bother asking this question two weeks – or months – ago?
October 5, 1999. Two of the alleged state witnesses/victims admitted in court that they had been lying since day one. They lied to the police. They lied to the Grand Jury that had indicted me. Think about that for a second…
Had that same Grand Jury known they were being told lies, they never would have indicted me on capital murder charges, or indicted me at all.
They lied to their family, the media, and everyone who asked them what happened. They lied, thinking a lie would prevent them from getting into trouble. In fact, they now admitted the truth, “We were trying to rob and kill Mamou, if need be, for his $20,000.”
You would think that would be enough to set me free, right? Wrong. This is Texas. The Lone Star State. The only state in America that truly believes it can thrive as its own quasi-nation, and once did with Sam Houston as its proxy president. It’s the state that sneezes snow up North, and shits Hell’s fire down South. The state that believes it’s okay to execute an innocent person as long as they can document a fair trial.
WTF?!
In my trial there was no DNA evidence, no eyewitnesses, no gun, no physical evidence that was used or attempted to be used against me – the DA knew that beforehand. What they did was assassinate my character, saying I was a drug lord, which I wasn’t. They put witnesses on the stand who were nothing more than lying jailhouse snitches, trying to get out of the criminal situations they were in. They took deals and testified that I confessed to them.
One guy wrote me a letter which my lawyer had, but ‘allegedly’ lost during my trial and found after my conviction, saying he knew nothing about what happened and that the police and DA threatened to charge him with conspiracy if he didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear about me.
The DA also told the jury that I was ‘guilty’ of two other unsolved murders that I was never a suspect in and never charged for. The only commonality between the cases was that they were ‘drug-related’. They may as well blame me for killing JFK.
One of the state prevaricators claimed that during my ‘confession’, I said I made Mary suck my dick before killing her. He also admitted that he spent days going over his testimony with the DA, and how he’d been told what to say and how to look directly at the jury when saying it.
Remember, there were nine women in the jury. When he said the lie, each of the female jurors began to cry, which was the result the DA was looking for. Never mind the examiner testified that Mary’s body was not sexually assaulted, nor otherwise harmed. I wasn’t even charged with rape. The allegation was made by a hearsay witness and left up to the jury to decide if it was credible. My incompetent lawyers assured me that the false claims were harmless because there was no evidence to support them.
Here we are nineteen years later, and after I was denied the newspaper and TV media outlets claimed I’m on death row for the rape and murder of Mary Carmouche. That’s not what I am on death row for. That wouldn’t matter in normal circumstances, but it does because I now have to explain to my grown daughters why the newspaper is saying I raped a woman.
It’s frustrating, especially when you know fake news is damaging any chance you have at justice.
October 12, 1999. After thirty minutes of deliberation, I was found guilty.
October 15, 1999. I received the death penalty.
November 17, 1999. I was sent to Texas death row a mere three and a half months after I arrived in Texas to face false charges. I never had a chance. My second chair lawyer was hired one month before my trial began, and he had no clue what was going on. Call it railroading. Judicial lynching. Rubber stamping. Call it whatever you want, just don’t call it Justice. In this case the bitch, Justice, truly was blind.
…August 17, 2018. I have walked and counted eighty-eight full circles while contemplating my situation, which seems so surreal. Sometimes I wish it was as easy as John McClane made it seem as he stood bare foot, bleeding, bruised and scarred on top of Nakatomi Plaza screaming, “Yippee ki-yay, muther fuckers!” The good guys stood triumphantly for justice and made sure it rang loud and true.
But this isn’t a scripted movie. It’s real life. In the world you know everything isn’t going to be all right. Even Belshazzar knew what time it was when he saw the writings on the wall with all that, ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,’ mess.
So, too, I see the writings. But I do not see symbols of mysterious hieroglyphics. I see names that indicate that justice is really ‘just-us’ and not for all. Names like Willie McGee, Todd Willingham, Emmett Till, Aiyanna Jones, Tamir Rice, Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, and I could go on naming at least 100 more from the top of my head who never got justice, even though the whole world knew they were getting fucked over. They were not part of the ‘just-us’ crowd. Men, women and children who are more worthy of a second chance than I could ever be, but no one came to their aid. No one in power spoke out and said this was wrong before the wrongs became so final.
It’s with these thoughts that I appreciate the point of view that solitude has given me. It comforts me to know I’m not alone, that American justice within the judicial system is only a reality if you have the money to pay the fees the system demands for its servants who have sold their souls and burned every ounce of civility, equality, righteousness and fairness that they once understood.
I may just become another footnote in a fact finding article years down the road, the story of an innocent who was murdered by the state, but I will use my platform anywhere I can to tell my story, a story America keeps on writing.
The comforts of solitude…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Charles “Chucky” Mamou is living on Death Row in Texas. His last appeal has been denied and he maintains his innocence.
He can be contacted at:
Charles Mamou #999333 Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351
