There are all kinds of hustles in federal prison. There are guys who shine shoes, fix watches and iron uniforms. Then, there are your inmate attorneys. Also known as writ writers or jailhouse lawyers. These are men who have, or sometimes claim to have, knowledge of the law who’ll help you work on your case. Some are hard working dudes. Others, well … they’re simply in it for the money. If an inmate brings me his case and I read it and see he ain’t got nothin’ comin’? Then I’ll tell him he ain’t got nothin’ comin’ and like it or not, go away. The harsh reality of prison is, very rarely does anyone win their case on appeal. No use lying to these guys telling them they’re going to win. Because 999 times out of 1,000, they can’t and won’t. And the sooner they get this through their thick skulls, the better off they’ll be. Know what I’m sayin’? Holding on to hope that just isn’t there is what steals your soul and life blood.

Among we writ writers who sit here in the law library day after day, there’s a private joke about a fictional law firm we call, Dewey, Cheatham, & Howe. Personally, I don’t beat people out of their money, but there are a lot of these crooked so-called inmate attorneys who will. For example, there’s a former federal public defender I met from Gary, Indiana. Of course, he’s doing time for fraud. This guy will literally tell you anything you want to hear. He’ll convince you he can win your case on either direct appeal or certiorari when in reality, all he wants is your dough. Sent Western Union from your family on the outside to his contact in the free world of course. That way there’ll be no trace of any inmate-to-inmate or outside-to-inmate money transaction on record. The real deal being, “Yes we can cheat ‘em and this is how.”

Then there are your cheap jailhouse attorneys. Men who’ll promise you the world on a silver platter for as little as a carton of smokes and a couple of jars of Folgers. There was one such guy at FCI El Reno. His name was Bill. Eventually Bill got ran off the yard for promising bullshit with his mouth that his ass couldn’t pay. It’s not nice to lie to someone, promising them you can get them back in court. Especially someone desperate, who just got a hot 30 piece, and a man with little or no understanding of the system, the new world he’s been thrown into, or how the convict system works. If you know for sure a guy ain’t got nothin’ comin’, then why would you lie to him knowing the dude’s in for armed robbery, kidnapping and murder? One would have to ask himself, are coffee and cigarettes really that important? If it were me, I’d have to say no. After old Bill checked in, I heard he got his ass beat in the hole. Shit happens. It just ain’t gonna happen with me or to me.

There are former chiropractors serving time in prison who can work on your back. And there are preachers who claim they can save your soul. However, beware of the slick talkin’ inmate attorney who claims he can get you out of lockup, because again, more often than not, they’re full of more shit than a Christmas turkey. Regardless of what they say, if their lips are movin’, they’re lyin’. I can spot a fraudster from a mile away. Take former California attorney Joe Jammy for example. The name of whom has been changed to keep him from being further beaten at whatever federal joint he’s in now. This asshole decided he was going to bilk a mafia boss out of a few thousand bucks promising him he could write something that would set him free. When he lied, as it ALWAYS happens, the boss found out, he too found himself on the business end of a pair of homemade prison knucks. Badly beaten and bruised and barely able to breathe through his shattered nose, he spent many days in an outside hospital getting reconstructive surgery done before getting moved to a PC (protective custody) joint somewhere in the U.S.

You’re got your U.C.C. guys (Universal Commercial Code) that tell you the way to go is to lien up the judge and prosecutor that put you in prison. To have an outside collection agent go to their houses, change the locks on their doors and haul off all their vehicles. That too won’t work. Just ask the Montana Freeman who got an extra 15 piece added to their already existing 30 for doing that same, exact, stupid shit. Sitting in the law library next to those guys at FCI El Reno, I told them that crazy crap wouldn’t work. That all they were going to do was wind up getting more time. But nooooo! They wouldn’t listen to me! Now they’re buried under the hole in some unknown federal prison somewhere eating bread and water and a few cockroaches for protein. Rest assured, the United States Government has jurisdiction to prosecute you anywhere and for anything they’d like. Never underestimate the United States Attorney. You think the writ writers in prison are crooked? You should see these guys work! All I’m sayin’ is … U.C.C. ain’t the way to go.

I do a little legal work here in the joint. But only stuff I know how to do. I can file for a fast and speedy trial under the rules of the IADA (Inter­state Agreement on Detainers Act). I can get a guy jail time credit if it’s due. And I’ve even been known to get a divorce or two granted, or a detainer dropped. But only because it’s something I’m familiar with—something I’ve done before. I won’t charge a guy an arm and a leg for my services either. If they don’t have any money, I don’t charge them anything at all. If they have the ability to pay and it’s not going to take away from their wife and kids. It’ll usually cost them a few books of postage stamps. No need in being greedy. I’ll do what I can do only if I think my client can win. No Dewey, Cheatham & Howe here. Just straight up honest legal work done by a layman who has more knowledge of the complicated science of the law than the average con. In closing, I’d just like to say … if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. That reference has haunted me for 8 years. If you come to me in prison lookin’ for legal help, don’t expect a miracle and get your mind set on doing your own time. It’s just easier to accept it and try to live in today than hope for things that will never come tomorrow. I’m Tripper. Better Days!

Smoking pot and doing legal work in the pen, I had the opportunity to meet an old gentleman by the name of Lonnie Howard McPhail. Smelling the strong, pungent odor of commercial Mexican coming from my cell one evening, old man McPhail happened by and asked me if I could spare a toke or two. “Sure old feller,” I said. “Come on in and sit a spell and we’ll catch a buzz.” Having seen the old guy around before, I knew he was okay. I knew he wasn’t a snitch and even though solid white headed and in his late 60’s to early 70’s, Mr. McPhail still liked to smoke cigarettes and a little bit of weed now and then. Talking to him, he told me he was from Calhoun County Mississippi. And the feds railroaded him, took all his land and property, and gave him a hot twenty year sentence. When I asked Mr. McPhail what he was in prison for, he said, “Having something someone else wanted, but being too bull-headed and stubborn to give it to them. Sure wish I had now.” Even though Mr. McPhail was serving time in federal prison for violation of 21 U.S.C. §841(a), possession with intent to deliver marijuana, he wasn’t guilty of the crime. What he was guilty of was … standing up to a bully who wanted to steal from him and guilty of being poor, uneducated, southern white trash.

Coughing and turning red from the joint we were smoking, I watched as Mr. McPhail’s eyes turned red and his blood pressure rose. “What do you mean having something someone else wanted and not giving it up?” I asked. “Well young Trip, my family left me and my two sisters hundreds upon hundreds of acres of land in Calhoun County. I had several businesses; a gas station, dry cleaners, and some other places around town. Didn’t want for much. Didn’t need anything. All I wanted to do was be left alone. Then, some big shot from one of the major petroleum companies came along one day and wanted to buy some land. A particular piece of my property, a 900 acre tract that apparently was sitting on top of a huge deposit of lignite coal. I told the tall, lanky, suit-wearing city slicker, as calmly and nicely as I could, that I didn’t want to sell. That my folks had given it to me and since me and my sisters weren’t hurting for money, I didn’t want to get rid of it. That we’d just keep it in the family. And for some reason or another, this guy didn’t seem to understand English. I thought I’d made myself clear. Yet he seemed like he didn’t want to take no for an answer. He left. But only to return two weeks later demanding I sell.”

“I’d just ran for county sheriff against the crooked asshole who’d held office the previous term. A man so evil and mean you just couldn’t believe it. Even though he was so-called ‘law enforcement,’ he was also a ranking member of the Dixie Mafia. Ever heard of them boy?” he asked. “Seems like I have. But I’m not sure. Were they anything like the White Citizens’ Council or the Ku-Klux-Klan?” “No. A slight bit worse actually. This particular guy, a dirty ass crook hiding behind the protection of his badge, thought and knew he could get away with murder. He’d done stuff so hideous that he literally thought he was above the law. He’d robbed, raped and killed and he didn’t like me. Mad at me because I had the nerve to run against him for public office. And … almost won! Then one day he threatened me Trip. Told me he was going to get me. Then, he started harassing me and my sisters and even some of my workers and farmhands. I didn’t know it at the time, but I guess that oil man from the petroleum company came to him and cut some sort of deal. Joining forces, the two came up with a plan not only to steal my land. But to lock me up for the rest of my natural born life. In the end, they succeeded. And here I sit in this cell at FCI Memphis smoking this joint with you.”

“One of the oil execs came back to my farm insistent that I sell that one 900 acres of land,” Mr. McPhail continued. “He pissed me off and I told him to leave. He said I’d be sorry. And he was right. Maybe I should have listened. Because here’s what he did. He filed for the right to drill on an easement running through my property. On an old dirt road right on the 900 acres he so desperately wanted. Through satellite technology, I guess he knew my land sat right smack dab on top of a forty-billion dollar coal deposit. And once he drilled, he knew for sure. That’s when he went in cahoots with the county law-dog and together, they got what they wanted. They knocked me off. They set me up and stole my land!” Taking another long, slow hit off the new doobie I’d just rolled, I asked Mr. McPhail, “How’d they do that Lonnie?” “Well you see Trip. I had so much land that there was no way I could frequent it everyday. So the sheriff and some of his henchmen came, planted hundreds and hundreds of marijuana plants on my land, and left. Then, they came and arrested me. Sitting in back of the sheriff’s cruiser, the sheriff said, ‘Lonnie. Sorry this had to happen. All you had to do was sell and everything would have been okay. But better you than me.’

Cuffed and looking out the back window of the cop car, I saw a helicopter land and several camouflage wearing men jump out carrying large bales of something or another placing it in one of my barns. At the time I didn’t know what
it was. Pretty soon, after about fifty to a hundred or so of those bales were unloaded, the men climbed back in the whirlybird and flew away. That’s when the sheriff got on his radio and called for backup and the news media. Next thing I knew, we were surrounded by law enforcement officials from several different
state and federal agencies as well as members of the local news team. Filming everything that was going on, the media reported that I was getting busted for growing marijuana and possessing processed marijuana, in the form of all those
bales that had just been unloaded and weed growing on the acreage behind my barn.My sisters and I were put in jail, couldn’t make bond, and we were rushed into federal court where all three of us were sentenced to the pen. I got a twenty and my sisters each got fifteen. And I swear to you Tripper, I didn’t have anything to do with any of the weed that was found growing or sitting on my property that day. My property and bank accounts were seized, I was unableto hire competent legal counsel, and the oil company eventually got my land.”

For several months, I typed legal motion after legal motion appealing Mr. McPhail’s case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. All to no avail. Even though uneducated in the complicated science of law, Mr. McPhail tried everything within his power to overcome the crooked legal system that locked he and his siblings away. Nonetheless, he inevitably failed. Soon after, Mr. McPhail got sick. The Bureau of Prisons shipped him to a medical facility out east. An old man in poor health that refused to stop smoking, Lonnie Howard McPhail passed away. Talking to a guy who’d recently transferred in from the same prison where Mr. McPhail died, I found out he’d bit the big one the very day his seizure case was finalized in court. He fought them till the bitter end. He did everything he knew how trying to win his case and get his property back. But in the end, he died in federal prison trying. I’m sure if someone wanted to, they could find some information on the web about Lonnie Howard McPhail’s case. I didn’t mention the particular oil company nor the sheriff’s name for a reason. This blog was written in remembrance of my old friend Mr. McPhail. May he rest in peace. I am Tripper! Better Days!