Review of The Racketeer by John Grisham

Overview from www.bn.com:

Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered.

Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.

Who is the Racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge’s untimely demise? His name, for the moment, is Malcolm Bannister. Job status? Former attorney. Current residence? The Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland.

On paper, Malcolm’s situation isn’t looking too good these days, but he’s got an ace up his sleeve. He knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and he knows why. The judge’s body was found in his remote lakeside cabin. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied.

What was in the safe? The FBI would love to know. And Malcolm Bannister would love to tell them. But everything has a price—especially information as explosive as the sequence of events that led to Judge Fawcett’s death. And the Racketeer wasn’t born yesterday . . .

Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller.

My Review:

Once again I have returned to the legal thriller genre though it is not one of my favorites. The author is the reason for this return. John Grisham is the king of this genre and his writing really draws me in. even if I am not always sure that I will like his next legal thriller, his writing and story-telling skills always seem to win me over. This story was no exception.

I am not sure how he always manages to come up with a new twist or a unique plot in this normally predictable genre but he does. This story is unlike any of his others.

Once I got to know the characters, I settled in and got comfortable. It seemed like the main character, a small time lawyer named Malcolm Bannister, was getting everything he wanted. It seemed like he was going to live happily ever after, but then everything changed.

Less than half-way through, Malcolm changes the rules. He embarks on an elaborate ruse to deceive not only the U.S. government, which he has never trusted since he was locked up, but the readers as well. We follow his steps as he implements some kind of elaborate plan though we’re not sure what he is trying to do exactly—at least I wasn’t.

Why didn’t Malcolm quit while he was ahead? Where did he expect to run go to avoid being killed by his rival? I didn’t know but I wanted to find out so I kept reading. And in the end I was rewarded. It kept me turning pages and thus I finished the book over the weekend.

It was well worth my time and if you give it a try I think you will agree. It is a not a deeply profound work of literature but it is a good way to pass your time and keep your attention. I, for one, was glad to see that Mr. Grisham has not lost his touch.

Contains: some language and sexuality

“Houstonian, who has no secrets to trade, is doing more time than drug lords
By Dane Schiller

FORT WORTH – The U.S. government didn’t offer a reward for the capture of Houston grandmother Elisa Castillo, nor did it accuse her of touching drugs, ordering killings, or getting rich off crime.

But three years after a jury convicted her in a conspiracy to smuggle at least a ton of cocaine on tour buses from Mexico to Houston, the 56-year-old first-time offender is locked up for life – without parole.

“It is ridiculous,” said Castillo, who is a generation older than her cell mates, and is known as “grandma” at the prison here. “I am no one.”

Convicted of being a manager in the conspiracy, she is serving a longer sentence than some of the hemisphere’s most notorious crime bosses – men who had multimillion-dollar prices on their heads before their capture.

The drug capos had something to trade: the secrets of criminal organizations. The biggest drug lords have pleaded guilty in exchange for more lenient sentences.

Castillo said she has nothing to offer in a system rife with inconsistencies and behind-the-scenes scrambling that amounts to a judicial game of Let’s Make A Deal.

“Our criminal justice system is broke; it needs to be completely revamped,” declared Terry Nelson, who was a federal agent for over 30 years and is on the executive board of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “They have the power, and if you don’t play the game, they’ll throw the book at you.”

Castillo maintains her innocence, saying she was tricked into unknowingly helping transport drugs and money for a big trafficker in Mexico. But she refused to plead guilty and went to trial.

In 2010, of 1,766 defendants prosecuted for federal drug offenses in the Southern District of Texas – a region that reaches from Houston to the border – 93.2 percent pleaded guilty rather than face trial, according to the U.S. government. Just 10 defendants were acquitted at trial, and 82 saw their cases dismissed.

The statistics are similar nationwide.

The latest case in point came this week with the negotiated surrender of a Colombian drug boss Javier Calle Serna, whom the United States accuses of shipping at least 30 tons of cocaine.

While how much time Calle will face is not known publicly, he likely studied other former players, including former Gulf Cartel lord Osiel Cardenas Guillen.

Cardenas once led one of Mexico’s most powerful syndicates and created the Zetas gang. He pleaded guilty in Houston and is to be released by 2025. He’ll be 57.

As the federal prison system has no parole, Castillo has no prospect of ever going home.

“Any reasonable person would look at this and say, ‘God, are you kidding?’ ” said attorney David Bires, who represented Castillo on an unsuccessful appeal. “It is not right.”

Castillo’s elderly mother in Mexico has not been told she’s serving life, and her toddler grandson thinks she’s in the hospital when he comes to visit her in prison.

Castillo is adamant about her innocence.

“Put yourself in my shoes. When you are innocent, you are innocent,” she said. “I don’t say I am perfect. I am not … but I can guarantee you 100 percent that I am innocent of this.”

At the urging of her boyfriend, Martin Ovalle, Castillo became partners with a smooth-talking Mexican resident who said he wanted to set up a Houston-based bus company.

But the buses were light on passengers and shuttled thousands of pounds of cocaine into the United States and millions of dollars back to Mexico. Her lawyers argued she was naive.

Castillo claims she didn’t know about the drug operation, but agents said she should have known something was wrong when quantities of money and drugs were repeatedly found on the coaches.

“After hearing all the evidence as presented from both the government and defense in this case, the jury found her guilty … ,” said Kenneth Magidson, chief prosecutor here.

Former federal prosecutor Mark W. White III said if Castillo had something to share, she might have benefited from a sentence reduction for cooperating.

“Information is a cooperating defendant’s stock in trade,” White said, “and if you don’t have any, … the chances are you won’t get a good deal.”

Castillo has faith that she’ll somehow, some day, go free. Her daily routine doesn’t vary: when she eats breakfast, when she works, when she exercises, and when she brushes her hair, which has gone from red-blond to black and gray. The gray gets respect in prison.

“I will leave here one day with my head held high,” she said. “I don’t feel like a bug or a cockroach. I am a human being, with my feet firmly on the ground.”"

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Douglas McNabb – McNabb Associates, P.C.’s
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Douglas McNabb and other members of the U.S. law firm practice and write and/or report extensively on matters involving Federal Criminal Defense, INTERPOL Red Notice Removal, International Extradition Defense, OFAC SDN Sanctions Removal, International Criminal Court Defense, and US Seizure of Non-Resident, Foreign-Owned Assets. Because we have experience dealing with INTERPOL, our firm understands the inter-relationship that INTERPOL’s “Red Notice” brings to this equation.

The author of this blog is Douglas C. McNabb. Please feel free to contact him directly at mcnabb@mcnabbassociates.com or at one of the offices listed above.

It sits, like a beacon, in the middle of the San Francisco Bay,  between the city of San Francisco and Oakland. The harsh, moist, salt  water and air is what causes the decay of the rock itself, as well as  the prison.

A stay on “The Rock” was very disturbing for most of the prisoners  who were housed there. They could sit and look out a barred window  and see people traveling on the nearby highways of the city and see  life going on as normal but being illusive to them. As one inmate  stated “it was horrible to look out and see life ongoing and knowing  you couldn’t be there and be a part of it. Not having that freedom to  move about. I looked out the window once when I first came to  Alcatraz and saw that and I vowed to never look out the window again  for as long as I was there.”

One can take a ferry, for a fee of $16.00 (including an audio about  the rock, from Pier 39 in San Francisco to Alcatraz. There are  several types of tours available, including an evening tour. During  the daylight hours one can even roam about the island without a tour.  But be careful, you may run into a ghostly resident of The Rock. They say there are many spirits that remain on The Rock even to this day.  Imprisoned, no longer by their government for their crimes, but by
their own thinking.
When you walk off the boat the appearance of the prison looms above  you. You must walk up a fairly steep incline to reach the prison  itself. The feeling is strange. Not because of the ghosts that haunt  this decaying place, but because you are so isolated from the rest of  the world as you stand on this island, yet you can look out over the  bay and see the normal activities of life. It is easy to envision the  pain of anyone housed at the prison as they watch the freedom of  normal life so close, yet so far away. The water between the cities  is so dangerous that an attempt to swim it seems more like a sure  fire death. Besides the currents, which are quite strong, the waters  are fairly heavy with sharks, making escape nearly impossible. The  government claims no one ever escaped Alcatraz. Though one very  famous attempt has been made into a movie, the movie still leaves you  with the impression that the three men who escaped may have died  trying. But we aren’t here for the study of escaping, no, we’re here  to see if we can sense any ghosts.

Once inside the prison, the sensation is strange, but that feeling is  more likely because you are completely out of your element. National  Parks personnel who maintain the prison have reported hearing the  cell doors open and close during the night. Though when they inspect  the cells, nothing out of the ordinary has taken place. They also  have reported hearing people talk in, what once was, the dining hall.  Cold spots have been reported also, throughout the prison area.

As you walk through the prison you have the feeling that you are  being watched. It could be the result of hearing the various stories  about the prison or it could be that those still imprisoned there are  watching. It is very difficult to say.

When one goes on a tour such as this it is not possible to truly  investigate. Alcatraz certainly has been investigated many, many  times. But if you simply want to check things out and are psychic, to  any degree, you will probably pick up the sense of someone watching  you. You may even hear the whispering of those who have gone before.  Or, if you go into the area that was used as the infirmary, you may  hear the screams of those inmates that were secured to a table until
they calmed down.
Whatever your reason for going to Alcatraz, be respectful of those  who went before you. Keeping in mind that many believe the Rock is  also haunted by those who served this country during war. Or perhaps  one of the Hopi Indians remains behind, still trying to reclaim the
land that is rightfully his.

http://www.eeeek.com/alcatraz.html

The woman was Susan Burton, who knows a lot about being processed through the criminal justice system.

Her odyssey began when a Los Angeles police cruiser ran over and killed her 5-year-old son. Consumed with grief and without access to therapy or antidepressant medications, Susan became addicted to crack cocaine. She lived in an impoverished black community under siege in the “war on drugs,” and it was but a matter of time before she was arrested and offered the first of many plea deals that left her behind bars for a series of drug-related offenses. Every time she was released, she found herself trapped in an under-caste, subject to legal discrimination in employment and housing.

Fifteen years after her first arrest, Susan was finally admitted to a private drug treatment facility and given a job. After she was clean she dedicated her life to making sure no other woman would suffer what she had been through. Susan now runs five safe homes for formerly incarcerated women in Los Angeles. Her organization, A New Way of Life, supplies a lifeline for women released from prison. But it does much more: it is also helping to start a movement. With groups like All of Us or None, it is organizing formerly incarcerated people and encouraging them to demand restoration of their basic civil and human rights.

I was stunned by Susan’s question about plea bargains because she — of all people — knows the risks involved in forcing prosecutors to make cases against people who have been charged with crimes. Could she be serious about organizing people, on a large scale, to refuse to plea-bargain when charged with a crime?

“Yes, I’m serious,” she flatly replied.

I launched, predictably, into a lecture about what prosecutors would do to people if they actually tried to stand up for their rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees the accused basic safeguards, including the right to be informed of charges against them, to an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial, to cross-examine witnesses and to the assistance of counsel.

But in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation’s prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the “get tough” movement — these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical. More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.

“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute. In other words: the system is rigged.

In the race to incarcerate, politicians champion stiff sentences for nearly all crimes, including harsh mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws; the result is a dramatic power shift, from judges to prosecutors.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

No wonder, then, that most people waive their rights. Take the case of Erma Faye Stewart, a single African-American mother of two who was arrested at age 30 in a drug sweep in Hearne, Tex., in 2000. In jail, with no one to care for her two young children, she began to panic. Though she maintained her innocence, her court-appointed lawyer told her to plead guilty, since the prosecutor offered probation. Ms. Stewart spent a month in jail, and then relented to a plea. She was sentenced to 10 years’ probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. Then her real punishment began: upon her release, Ms. Stewart was saddled with a felony record; she was destitute, barred from food stamps and evicted from public housing. Once they were homeless, Ms. Stewart’s children were taken away and placed in foster care. In the end, she lost everything even though she took the deal.

On the phone, Susan said she knew exactly what was involved in asking people who have been charged with crimes to reject plea bargains, and press for trial. “Believe me, I know. I’m asking what we can do. Can we crash the system just by exercising our rights?”

The answer is yes. The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, “if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos.”

Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial “emergency” fiat). Either action would create a crisis and the system would crash — it could no longer function as it had before. Mass protest would force a public conversation that, to date, we have been content to avoid.

In telling Susan that she was right, I found myself uneasy. “As a mother myself, I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t plead guilty to if a prosecutor told me that accepting a plea was the only way to get home to my children,” I said. “I truly can’t imagine risking life imprisonment, so how can I urge others to take that risk — even if it would send shock waves through a fundamentally immoral and unjust system?”

Susan, silent for a while, replied: “I’m not saying we should do it. I’m saying we ought to know that it’s an option. People should understand that simply exercising their rights would shake the foundations of our justice system which works only so long as we accept its terms. As you know, another brutal system of racial and social control once prevailed in this country, and it never would have ended if some people weren’t willing to risk their lives. It would be nice if reasoned argument would do, but as we’ve seen that’s just not the case. So maybe, just maybe, if we truly want to end this system, some of us will have to risk our lives.”

I was asked by some brothers and sisters about the life in US prisons, I wish to inform you that I have been in US prisons for seventeen years now, but not every prison in the US is like the other. First they have two different systems Federal prisons and state prisons, they can send a Federal inmate to state prison and vise versa, even in Federal prisons they have many different levels and you can think of it as levels of security, low means that the inmates have more freedom, then medium with less freedom , high is least in freedoms, then they have Maximum which of course the highest level with very little freedom, having said that you have to take in consideration the inmate’s status, there are pretrial inmates, hold over inmates, pre-sentencing …etc

Every institution even in same level of security can be different because the local people who run it have their
own way of doing things and they share only the bare minimum of the rules, they have great leeway and
discretion, so one thing can be allowed in one prison and banned in the other while both are at the same level of security, then you have different units, some units in the same prison can be totally different.

I have to add that no mater what level of security the inmate is in they might decide to put him in solitary confinement for some time, so we should think about solitary confinement as a level in itself. The normal prison cell is usually the same, a toilet seat attached to a sink both made of stainless steel, a concrete slab used as bed or metal double bunker bed, some cells might have a shelf and some might have a locker or two, some might have even a shower, some have windows to see the sky some don’t, some are air conditioned some are not.

As an inmate we have no say in where we are housed, they can ship us anywhere without notice, they have about 114 Federal prisons in US. I have been in solitary confinement for fourteen years, and even that is different from one place to the another, but in a normal situation we can use the toilet at any time, we can wash and drink from the sink at any time, of course the water can be cut, and sometimes for many reasons and it is not the cleanest water everywhere.

Also the life in solitary confinement means that the food is brought to the cell in two trays, one is cold the other is hot, the food itself is very different from one prison to the next, even different units can get different food, but in general food in the Federal prisons are as follows:

Common fare (Kosher or following the Jewish religious requirements).

• No pork (meat of pigs is not served, but beef, chicken, fish, turkey are served, they are not halal meat)
• No meat (all kinds of flesh is not served in this diet, soy bean products and cheese are substitutes).
• Regular (pork is served in this diet)
• Regular Heart Healthy (same as regular but with less fat)
• No meat Heart healthy (same as no meat but with less fat) (I am on this diet.)

Here we also get our food in similar trays, we used to get the food in larger trays then the inmates who work for food service used to give each inmate his portion from food and desert, but they stopped that long time ago, we heard that they will bring back the old system because only our unit was singled out to get the food in trays like those in solitary confinement.

I have to say that in this unit that I am currently in, it is the least restrictive prison I been to since my incarceration, we have showers that we can use at any time during the fourteen or so hours that we are allowed to be out of our cells, we have many things that is very good like an Islamic library (a small one) and we have TV and CD and DVD players that we can use to watch educational and Islamic videos and Qur’an, we have microwave ovens to cook some dishes from what we can buy from the commissary, we can pray Juma’ah together and in Ramadan we can pray together too, but in daily prayers we are punished if we pray together.

In my fourteen years before coming here I saw many abuses and went through very tough times and I am sure that many brothers are still going through that now, it is a long story but I wish that I can tell you some of it later. Usually when an inmate is treated like everybody else he doesn’t feel bad and it is acceptable to some degree. But usually what happens is that Muslims (especially those accused of anything linked to the so called war on terror) are subjected to different treatment than the rest of the inmate population, let me give you a brief idea about the size of the Federal prison population:

Every crime takes place in some state or another and that state can bring charges and put the accused in state prison, there are fifty states, so in theory there are fifty different prison systems and every state can pass laws regarding prisons, all the states have about 2+ million inmates, then there is the Federal system that grew rapidly in the past 23 years from 70,000 inmates to about 220,000 inmates today!! Because the Federal [government] can choose to charge anyone they want even if the state did so under local law, out of these 220,000 inmates they target about 100 or so only to be in units designed to limit the freedom of the inmates, most of these 100 or so inmates are Muslims.

This unit I am in is unique in the Federal system, there are only two CMU units, just to limit our communication with outside, so visits and phone calls are limited and there is a big difference between a regular prison unit and our unit in those areas. So if you look at prisons in US you might be fooled, because you see only one type or another, the Federal system is not open to the Media like the state system and that adds to the confusion.

On the subject of Qur’an here, we are learning Qur’an everyday some are “Hafiz” others are getting there while some are left behind, I myself I am studying the Ten Qira’as (Two of Medina, One of Makah, Two of Basra, One of Sham and Four of Kofah, each of these Qira’ahs have two Rewayahs or more !!) so I have to study hard and I go after I study a surah or two and recite it according to the Qira’ah that I am learning, I have access to at least to eight different books on the subject.

Because I don’t have with me any one here who is knowledgeable in these Qira’ahs, I tend to revise it to myself, some times the brothers like to listen but it is difficult for them to know what are the rules of these Qira’ahs, most people these days learn the Qur’an according to the Rewaiah of Hafs of the Qira’ah of ‘assem, I too learned the whole Qur’an on that first then started learning one Qira’ah at a time, I still have three to go, so make dua’ for me to get the honor of learning them all.

Of course whenever I get out of  prison I have to find a Qary’ who will listen to me and if I pass then I might be given the right to teach, I am only preparing myself here, I am happy that I am spending my time in learning the book of Allah, what else is there in this life? If you have any questions don’t be shy to ask, may Allah make us among those who love each other for his sake, amen, salamu alykum.

While smoking bans have been in place for Florida public buildings and offices for some time now, and the Federal Prison system has been smoke-free since 2004, the prisons run by the state have not been.

[worldnow id=5658526 width=385 height=288 type=video]

“Inmate smoking and second-hand smoking is costing millions in healthcare costs each year,” said Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Edwin Buss.

“Eliminating smoking is a win for taxpayers, but it’s also a win for employees and inmates, making our facilities healthier places to work and live in, and making them a little safer too,” he said.

Florida taxpayers spent nearly $9 million last year for inmate tobacco-related illness, according to a Florida Department of Corrections statement. Removing cigarettes from prisons will also result in cleaner facilities, remove lighters and reduce the chance of arson, according to the statement.

Inmates will have 180 days notice that their smoking rights will be removed. Help in quitting the habit will be offered.

There will be designated smoking areas for employees outside prison fences.

Federal Prison, Danbury CT

I believe leaders of our nation have made decisions within the past decade that could have fatal consequences for our country. We have incurred an enormous debt and China and other countries are essentially financing our nation’s economy. We are making foreign policy decisions without understanding.

Just as Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Truman were the right men to lead our country during perilous times, I pray that our president is the right man for these times.

Having said that, I believe President Obama is making a mistake in wanting to bring the Gitmo detainees to the Continental United States. I understand the president’s view of the benefits but I don’t think he has thought through the risks to our Federal Prison System. These detainees are not criminals. They are a highly cohesive group who are at war with the U.S. Their years of adversity, interrogation and shared experiences at Gitmo have served to define their identity and strengthen them.

Everyone associated with the Federal Prison System—prison guards, prisoners, suppliers, lawyers, all employees and their families—will become potential targets for the terror network. The terrorists will seek to exploit grievances, corruption, fear—whatever it takes—to find a weak link in the system. We are about to unleash forces into our prison system with unpredictable and dangerous results. We should not voluntarily take this risk.