Monthly Archives: November 2015

ZACHARIAH ZAMBROSKI, ATTORNEY AT LAW, by Wayne T. Dowdy

November 13, 2015Uncategorizedinmate writer, lawyer, Writing life from inside of prisonsadmin1

I hope to have the proof copy of UNKNOWN INNOCENCE from Midnight Express Books before the new year rolls in. For now, though, I am sharing the synopsis and a scene from Big Bobby’s first meeting with his unscrupulous lawyer, Zachariah Zambroski.

Synopsis

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Military Police finds Roger Johnson slumped over the steering wheel of his Mercedes Benz, a bullet hole in his head. State Senator Leroy Johnson wants swift justice for the murder of his son. The military turns the case over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Special Agent Ward promises Senator Johnson he will find the murderer.

Big Bobby Sanders drank too much the night of the murder. Lost in a blackout when the murder occurs and unable to prove his alibi, DNA evidence put him in jail for killing his friend. An exotic dancer knows the truth. She gets forced out of town after telling her story to attorney Zachariah Zambroski. Under pressure by Agent Ward to close the case, Zambroski convinces Sanders to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. In prison he befriends a man who ultimately introduces him to the lovely Nicole Anderson, a former dancer who fights to free him. Love opens the door to prove his innocence. The murder remains a mystery until the next book meets the press.

“UNKNOWN INNOCENCE is a riveting tale that transcends genres. It’s a mystery and a thriller, with a love story woven through its fabric.” Introduction to UNKNOWN INNOCENCE by Jeffrey P. Frye, author of ONE CRAZY DAY, Murder Slim Press (www.murderslimpress.com).

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Chapter Four conclusion (Initial Appearance)

The morning after the Initial Appearance hearing, Bobby, Wild Bill, and two others sat at a table playing spades. The jailer sitting at the Officer’s Desk shouted, “Sanders, someone’s here to see you. Front and center.”

He was escorted to a small booth. He stared at the man sitting on the other side of a Plexiglas window, who had a short beard and a bushy mustache. When he sat down, the man said, “Hi, I’m Zachariah Zambroski, Attorney at Law. The court appointed me to represent you.”

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An Excerpt from Chapter Five: ZACHARIAH ZAMBROSKI

“Mr. Sanders, it doesn’t matter to me if you are guilty. My job is to defend you regardless of your guilt or innocence, but I need to know exactly what happened if you expect me to help you win this case.”

Bobby twisted in his seat and repositioned the phone. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what happened.”

“It says here that you are charged with murder on a federal reservation. … Your fingerprints were in the victim’s car, and … on a beer bottle that also contained your DNA. That is a very serious charge and is possibly enough evidence to convict you. It does not help that the victim was the son of North Carolina’s most respected senator.”

“I know it is, but I still don’t know what happened. All I can tell you is that me and Roger were friends and went out partying every chance we got. The Lonely Rooster Lounges has a special show and discount prices on all drinks every Wednesday. Me and Roger went there fairly regular. The only thing I really remember about the last time we were there, is that I started downing shots and chasing them with beer.”

“Do you have anyone who can verify that?”

“Yes and no. There was a stripper there as a special feature. Delilah, I think was her stage name. Anyway, she came over and did a lap dance for me and Roger. She might remember. And then I woke up in bed with a girl named Sheila. She’s who I need to find, but I don’t remember where she lived.”

“Tell me everything you know about her. Maybe I can figure out how to locate her to testify for you.”

At the beginning of the interview, Zambroski had already asked several general questions from the Criminal Justice form he needed to complete in order to be paid, and knew he could requisition more funds for having to investigate.

“I don’t know a whole lot about her, really.”

“What did she look like? What area did she live in? Who did she work for?”

“She looked like an angel, about five-three or four or five. Uhh, she had real long, coal-black hair that shined,” he said and then smiled. “A real shapely body and amber-colored eyes. She said she was part Native American. Cherokee and Caucasian, or Cherokee and Spanish and Caucasian.”

“Where did she work?”

“Some strip club in Charlotte or right around there, I’m not sure exactly. She’s a dancer. I’m pretty sure it was the Star Shadow Gentleman’s Club. I couldn’t remember shit when the FBI was asking me questions about it.”

“That’s probably a good thing. Loose lips sink ships.”

“I know she lived in a nice subdivision near the lake. Not real far from where I stay, like I said earlier, on the northeast side of Charlotte.”

He scribbled some notes on a clipboard. “Who else might know something I can use to defend you?”

“As big as I am, not many people at the club could have missed me. Sheila said she saw me get out of Roger’s car. Maybe someone else did, too. Someone had to have seen something that can help prove he was alive and drove away from the club without me.”

“How did y’all get along? Did you argue or fight with each other, or do anything that might make people think you’d have had a reason to kill him?”

“No, not that I recall.”

“Don’t be offended by this, but why don’t you remember more about the night he got murdered?”

He leaned away from the window and laid the phone on the counter. Then he glanced down at the cheap, county-issued, flip flops. The marshals had confiscated his shoes because the FBI wanted to test them and his clothes for gunpowder residue and other forensic tests, just like they were doing with everything in the apartment.

Zambroski tapped the window with his ink pen.

He frowned before he picked up the phone. “I hate saying this, but I drank too much and blacked out, lost contact with reality. I don’t know what I did.”

“Have you ever seen a drug treatment specialist, a doctor or psychiatrist who might verify that you are a problem drinker? It could be something I could use as a potential defense to avoid the death penalty if you get convicted.”

“No.”

“I don’t know how receptive jurors would be if you got on the stand and couldn’t say where you were at when the victim was murdered. Even though you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, in reality, you are guilty until proven innocent.”

“I know,” he said and then nibbled on the edge of his bottom lip.

“You can’t prove you were in a blackout, and at this point, you don’t have any way to prove you got out of the car and he drove away. Do you see our dilemma?” he asked without stopping for an answer. “My contact at the agency told me about the fingerprints and DNA, which, by the way, they got real fast, a lot faster than normal, and that’s not good for you. It shows how bad they want to close this case and put someone away for it. You are their only suspect right now. That is not good at all,” he said and shook his head. “They can prove you were with him, in the car, and that, supposedly, it says here, that y’all were arguing the night he was murdered. That is really bad news for you when sitting in a courtroom as the defendant in a capital murder case of a senator’s son. They have proof you left the Lonely Rooster Lounges with him, and have some witness saying you were arguing with him when y’all got in his Mercedes and left the parking lot of the club. You have nothing but an excuse of having drank too much and not remembering anything.”

“I don’t know how the hell I ended up in this bullshit.” He leaned forward on his elbows and held the phone to his ear. “Maybe you can find Sheila for me.”

“Let’s hope so. You need someone to help you win this. Since you can’t say where you were at, we are going to have a hard time fighting the United States of America. Sometimes they lie and cheat in the name of justice. They also have a high conviction rate.” …..

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The story goes on. Experts suggests we write what we know. I know from first-hand experience how the American judicial process works. I created that scene based upon my experiences with jails and attorneys; however, my attorney in this case warned me not to say anything I didn’t want to say before a jury. His statement killed any trust in our relationship. In the above scene, Zachariah Zambroski was functioning as a competent attorney. That was before F.B.I. agent Ward threatened to put him in prison for his past dirty deeds, if he didn’t help close the case.

On a personal level, during my trial we proved that a witness received a payment to testify against me. The lead F.B.I. agent had given her $500.00 to testify and had not revealed it during a process known as Discovery. He claimed the bank provided the money and that he didn’t think he had to tell anyone. The judge ordered the government to reveal any other payments made to witness. “There are none, Your Honor,” claimed the Assistant United States Attorney. The lead F.B.I. agent sat beside her. Ten years later I provided documented evidence and proved that the bank had given $1,000.00 to that same F.B.I. agent for the payment of two witnesses. I filed a motion to that effect. The court responded that I failed to prove who the second paid witness was, and then dismissed the motion. I petitioned for reconsideration and pointed out that the issue was that the F.B.I. and government had lied and refused to follow the court’s order to reveal any other payments made to witnesses. The court denied that motion, too. That is justice in America. Law books are filled with stories about justice denied. My case was not anything special.

On spiritual lines, though, I know everything happened the way that it had to have in order to preserve my life, and for that I am grateful. Thanks for reading my writings.

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Expect UNKNOWN INNOCENCE before 2016. Purchase the paperback through Midnight Express Books, Amazon.com, CreateSpace.com, or your favorite bookstore after its release. For an interesting collection of my writings, read ESSAYS & MORE STRAIGHT FROM THE PEN ($10.95, Midnight Express Books).

All books and eBooks available through StraightFromthePen.com or your favorite online or offline bookstores. Check the website for updates (http://www.straightfromthepen.com). The best price on eBooks are from my author’s page at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/WayneMrDowdy.

RAIN, BLOGS, FROGS & POLITICS by Wayne T. Dowdy

November 3, 2015Current Affairs, Environment, My Life Inside, Politics, Prison Livingadmin1

Update: June 29, 2022: Many followers never read some of these blogs I wrote while serving my federal sentence. I paid Five cents per minute to type and read anything on Corrlinks.com, Fifteen cents per page to print so I could edit before emailing to my publisher to post. But getting my writings beyond the walls and barbwire fences was more important to me than saving the money I spent each week to do what I did.

Rain falls as I run on my catch-up mode. This is my first blog since I posted “Frog Napper Returns” on October 1, 2015. I planned to write at least two blogs per month. I did not do as planned. Legal matters and other obligations pulled me from my plans.

BLOGS: I worked ten days overtime last month in the Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR), where I am the document control clerk and an internal auditor in an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certified factor. I also help keep the factory ISO certified by participating in external audits conducted by the National Standards Authority of Ireland, and by writing or editing technical documents used for administrative and instructional purposes. On overtime I earn $2.60 per hour for all hours in excess of 7.25, of which I earn $1.45 per hour ($10.51 per day for regular pay). If working in a similar position in the free society, I’d earn a five to six figure salary. I will write a blog in the future on UNICOR & SOCIETY. I wrote an unpublished essay on the topic several years ago that I will extract data from to update. Anyway, the overtime alone occupied lots of time and kept me too tired to be blogging, after going to work at 7:30 AM and getting off at 8:30 PM, only to work on other pressing projects until bedtime.

To consume more of my valued time, I worked on a “Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence, Pursuant to 28 U.S.C., Section 2255” (2255) for a young Native American with an unconstitutional sentence. The court sentenced him to 180-months imprisonment for a crime that carried a maximum of 120-months. A recent United States Supreme Court ruling (Johnson v. United States, June 26, 2015), opened the door for him and hundreds of others erroneously sentenced for crimes captured with the “residual clause” of the Armed Career Criminal Act. The residual clause was a “catch-all-clause” prosecutors used to classify any crime with a “potential” for violence as a violent felony. Three prior violent felonies increased a 10-year statutory maximum to 15-years to life without parole, for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. In addition to that 2255, I completed another one for a friend with the same circumstances, which I worked on for six weeks before volunteering for the second one. Every now and then I am a nice person, even in prison. 🙂 Honestly, I am a nice person on most days of my life. At any rate, I do apologize for my delinquent blog posting.

RAINY DAYS: In addition to the above, I planned to write a blog on October 10, 2015, about a “Rainy Day in the Pen,” and then became distracted and thought about writing on “Mass Shootings in America.” Rain dampened my plans on “One Rainy Day in the Pen,” after this area experienced torrential downpours that caused dams to rupture and floods that killed people, while I sat in prison complaining about getting soaked to go to the chow hall in anticipation of a pastry and dry cereal, only to find a pastry and cream of wheat I do not eat. I’m a Southerner. I eat grits!

This morning (11/01/2015), I went out in the rain again for a pastry and dry cereal. This time I succeeded at getting milk, low-cost corn flakes that turn gluey after moments in milk, and a cheese danish, all worth the five-hundred yard trip to the chow hall in the rain. At least no one locally has drown in floods while I enjoyed the privilege of having food to eat and a roof over my head, something many free-citizens do not have, something I write with sadness.

While pondering the ideas for that blog, I listened to CNN News about an idiot who had walked into a college in Oregon and massacred nine innocent people and shot several others. The only good part of the story being a man with courage who challenged the gunman, rather than lying down to wait for his execution. He survived five gunshot wounds and his heroic actions saved others. He is an American soldier who deserves a world of praise, since most people cower when faced with such danger, which usually results in death. If you see an idiot with a gun walking around shooting people, why stand and wait for him to shoot you? I wonder if people think the shooter will run out of bullets or suddenly be filled with kindness and compassion and decide to spare them?

Under those dire circumstances, in my opinion, I think it is best to stand and fight; to take a bullet for a cause, maybe that will allow others to live; may even be the event that causes the “herd effect,” where others follow in the charge to defuse the situation. A passive stance will most likely lead to being shot with the other victims. Killers aren’t compassionate people. Such acts of cowardice only offends a psychopath with a gun or weapon. One mass murderer in the state of Georgia, once wrote how the people laid there like cattle and waited for him to execute them, that they weren’t even willing to fight for their lives. Me, personally, I would not wait. Shoot me, he may do, but it would NOT be as I sat trembling waiting to be executed. I might be trembling as I charged or found something to throw to distract or injure him, but I would not be shot while waiting for my turn. Shoot me next. If all else failed, I’d run like hell. Anyway, for that blog I needed more factual information to write on that topic, so I added it to my Blogs To Do List.

FROGS: And then I ran into the infamous Frog Napper Frye, who had just made bond for his crimes against living creatures–Frog Abduction. Not really. Really, that I ran into him, not really for why he was thrown into a custom-designed prison cell the day after I had last saw him, transporting a frog in a bottle. I learned that he had freed the frog I helped abduct. And then he delivered his bad news: after his arrest, frog lovers freed his captive frog, Shorty Morgan; a small arboreal amphibian named after someone who had confiscated the frog-nappers’ relocated (stolen) onions and bell peppers.

I was happy to learn that both frogs had found their freedom because all living creatures want to be free. I wrote along those lines in my blog, “#Nature: Frogs, an Octopus, and #Escapees.” [1] Well, my friend disappeared again. The rumor mill (Inmate.com) has it that he was rearrested for his blog, “Embracing the Chaos”; that may or may not be true. It could have happened, or his arrest may have been for some devious activity, but he felt that it happened because of the blog. I read the blog and didn’t feel it contained any information worthy of casting a prisoner inside the Segregated Housing Unit, but, …. what I think doesn’t always coincide with what prison administrators and politicians think. More will be revealed. Read his blogs at bankblogger.weebly.com or murderslimpress.com/BankRobber’sBlog.

POLITICS: I delayed writing that blog because the situation reminded me of the political attempt to silence the pen of a prisoner in the Pennsylvania prison system, who was involved in a “controversial case of killing a police officer.” I needed more information to write that one: I found it and so here I am, fingers on keys, but not the keys to my freedom, only the keys I use to exercise my freedom of speech that the United States Constitution says I have under its First Amendment. The Pennsylvania Legislatures squeezed the life out of that Amendment by passing “The Revictimization Relief Act.” A federal judge deemed that law “manifestly unconstitutional.” The Honorable Christopher C. Conner, United States Middle District Chief Judge. “‘A past criminal offense does not extinguish the offender’s constitutional right to free expression,’ Conner wrote. ‘The First Amendment does not evanesce at the prison gate, and its enduring guarantee of freedom of speech subsumes the right to expressive conduct that some may find offensive.'” (Pennsylvania Law Limiting Speech of Prisoners Struck Down, by Andrew V. Pestano, [2015] upi.com.)

The Supreme Court relied upon the Free Speech principle in deciding on a case dealing with Hustler Magazine and its owner, Larry Flint. Some people found the content of the magazine offensive, but the Court still protected his right to publish it. Flint’s lawyer basically posed that if it protects those people who others want to silence or restrict, then it protects the average American citizen even more.

Prisoners only have so much freedom of speech. Some speech can lead us to being handcuffed and then confined in a small cell without a phone, typewriter, or severely-crippled-computer, such as the one upon which I type. There are those who will still fight for what is right, regardless of the price our actions may demand. Most allow fear or lack of knowledge to stop them from challenging unconstitutional restrictions. Read my blog, “Fighting for Rights to Write” [2], for an example of fighting for others who may not have the skills, as well as for my personal interests and liberties. That is one of many incidents I fought and won. I succeeded at convincing the administration of its error in trying to implement a process that would impede my ability to exercise my freedom of speech. Not all prison administrators, or politicians, or judges, are bad people; however, some are more evil and devious and sinister than any prisoner executed on death row for their crimes against humanity.

At the end of the day, we are all human beings trying to find our way through the life experience. We do what we feel is right or wrong and then worry about the benefits or consequences when the time comes to reap the rewards or pay the piper. I have paid dearly throughout my life for making poor decisions, but now I reap the rewards of having becoming a good human being. If you read ESSAYS & MORE STRAIGHT FROM THE PEN by Wayne T. Dowdy, it will allow you to see life from a different perspective about the cost of a person’s actions for being an outlaw. After reading it, you will want to share it with a friend, especially if you have one travelling down a road headed toward destruction.

The rain continues to pour, many Southern states flooded again. Good day for bullfrogs, and a good day to blog about frogs.

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[1] read full text at https://straightfromthepen.wordpress.com or http://waynedowdy.weebly.com

[2] first published at www.prisoneducation.com in February 2014; reposted March 2015 on https://straightfromthepen.wordpress.com and http://waynedowdy.weebly.com

[3] Go to http://www.straightfromthepen.com to purchase my books; or for my eBooks, essays, and short stories, to my author’s page at Smashwords.com (https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/WayneMrDowdy) or Amazon.kindle.